Re: monoholitic, hybrid or not monoholitic?

[Tommy Reynolds]

Uttered Matt Kavanagh <matthew@xxxxxxxxxx>, spake thus:

> > the kernel were mostly descripted as monoholitic. but some sources means
> > that the linux kernel is not really monoholitic because of the feature
> > of loading kernel modules.
> I'd tend towards monolithic because the modules (as mentioned) run in kernel
> space.

These discussions are taking the wrong viewpoint.  The difference
between "monolithic" and "modular" kernels refers to their *internal*
organization, not a cosmetic *packaging* decision.

Linux is a monolithic kernel because one kernel routine can call
another directly, without intervention of any message passing
overhead.

Linux modules are simply packaging exercises that allow some code
_not_ originally linked into the kernel image to be grafted into an
executing kernel image.  Once installed, kernel modules can reference
other kernel resources with, again, a straight subroutine reference
without any message passing intervention.

All else is quibbling about the color of the ribbon used to wrap up
the module code ;-)

HTH.
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| Tommy Reynolds                  | Email: <Tommy.Reynolds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>  |
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| Danville, AL 35619 USA          | Fax:   +1.256.350.5099                 |
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