summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/microkernel.mdwn
blob: edefddb78b3fd0f155d621fa5838b639664df846 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2007, 2008, 2010 Free Software Foundation,
Inc."]]

[[!meta license="""[[!toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[!toggleable
id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license
is included in the section entitled [[GNU Free Documentation
License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]

A *microkernel* is one kind of a [[kernel]] implementation.

[[Liedtke]] explains in [On Microkernel Construction](http://l4ka.org/publications/paper.php?docid=642)
that a microkernel attempts to minimize the mandatory part of the operating
system by providing the minimal number of [[mechanism]]s that
maximize the flexibility of implementation (by imposing minimal
[[policy]]) while allowing the efficient implementation of the
remainder of the system.

The idea of a microkernel as explained above was first explored
by Per Brinch-Hansen in 1970 in
[The Nucleus of a Multiprogramming System](http://brinch-hansen.net/papers/1970a.pdf).

An [introduction](http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/ulfar/ukernel/ukernel.html) by 
Úlfar Erlingsson and Athanasios Kyparlis (from 1996) to microkernel concepts.

[[Research]].

[[Microkernels_for_beginners|for_beginners]].

A 2002 article about [[microkernel_FUD|FUD]] (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt).

[[FAQ]].


# Implementations

  * [[Hydra]]

  * [[KeyKOS]]

  * [[Mach]] -- used by the GNU/Hurd

  * [[EROS]]

  * [[CapROS]]

  * [[Coyotos]]

  * [[L4]]

  * [[Barrelfish]]

  * [[Viengoos]]