CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowskernelmicrokernelmonolithic
er sd
er sd

Reputation: 71

Why is the Windows NT kernel said to be a hybrid model?

According to Wikipedia, the Windows Kernel is a hybrid model, meaning it has both a monolithic and microkernel architecture.

But both definitions are very opposite: monolithic is that there is a shared place for both system services and core functionality, microkernel means there is not a shared place.

So, I bet that means that windows has shared space for some, and for other system services and core functionalities it is decoupled.

I'm trying my best to understand this but it's very cryptic for me, although I'm a professional software engineer. Do you perhaps have an, maybe relatable, example in which it is monolithic and in which it is microkernel?

And to what extent is it similar to say Ubuntu and to what extent is it totally different from Ubuntu kernel, which is said to be fully monolithic?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 449

Answers (1)

Anna Lyons
Anna Lyons

Reputation: 238

Generally speaking, a microkernel has very few services provided by the kernel itself, which execute in kernel mode while a monolithic kernel has the vast majority of servers (especially drivers) running in kernel mode.

Many monolithic OSes are taking the approach of running some of their services and drivers at user level and this is what they mean by hybrid. They might keep the network drivers completely in the kernel but run GPU drivers at user level for example.

Upvotes: 1

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