Components of an Operating Systems

 

Components of an Operating Systems

There are two basic components of an Operating System.

• Shell
• Kernel

Shell

Shell is the outermost layer of the Operating System and it handles the interaction with the user. The main task of the Shell is the management of interaction between the User and OS. Shell provides better communication with the user and the Operating System Shell does it by giving proper input to the user it also interprets input for the OS and handles the output from the OS. It works as a way of communication between the User and the OS.

Kernel

The kernel is one of the components of the Operating System which works as a core component. The rest of the components depends on Kernel for the supply of the important services that are provided by the Operating System. The kernel is the primary interface between the Operating system and Hardware.

Functions of Kernel

The following functions are to be performed by the Kernel.

• It helps in controlling the System Calls.
• It helps in I/O Management.
• It helps in the management of applications, memory, etc.

Types of Kernel

There are four types of Kernel that are mentioned below.

• Monolithic Kernel
• Microkernel
• Hybrid Kernel
• Exokernel

For more, refer to Kernel in Operating System.

Difference Between 32-Bit and 64-Bit Operating Systems

32-Bit Operating System	64-Bit Operating System
32-Bit OS is required for running of 32-Bit Processors, as they are not capable of running on 64-bit processors.	64-Bit Processors can run on any of the Operating Systems, like 32-Bit OS or 64-Bit OS.
32-Bit OS gives a low efficient performance.	64-Bit Operating System provides highly efficient Performance.
Less amount of data is managed in 32-Bit Operating System as compared to 64-Bit Os.	A large amount of data can be stored in 64-Bit Operating System.
32-Bit Operating System can address 2^32 bytes of RAM.	64-Bit Operating System can address 2^64 bytes of RAM.