System Structure Back to Index 2. The kernal is the heart of a Linux system. It is responsible for controlling the resources, scheduling proccesses, controlling access to the CPU, and controlling access to the peripheral devices like the cd-rom or the soundcard.
All programs interact to the kernel through system calls.
These are generic functions, such as write, that will work with a number of different devices. One advantage of this is that old utilities can work with new devices since the system call is still the same. This flexibility also allows for porting between versions of the operating system, since even though the kernel may implement something differently, the call is still the same. Linux has a monolithic design. This means that all of the needed drivers and utilities for the system to run are all built into the kernel.