Technology

What’s diff btw monolithic and layered operating systems?

The main difference between monolithic and layered operating systems is that, In monolithic operating systems, the entire operating system works in the kernel space, while layered operating systems have multiple layers, each of which performs different tasks. What’s diff btw monolithic and layered operating systems?

An operating system manages the functionalities of the entire system. It handles process management, task scheduling, device and file management, and many more. It also provides security to data and resources. Therefore, the operation of the entire computer depends on the operating system. Also, these operating systems are of various types, and two of them are monolithic and layered operating system.

Key Areas Covered

1. What is a monolithic operating system?
     – Definition, Functionality
2. What is a layered operating system?
     – Definition, Functionality
3. What is the difference between monolithic and layered operating systems?
     – Comparison of key differences

What is a monolithic operating system?

There are three main layers in monolithic operating systems: application layer, monolithic kernel, and hardware layer. On these operating systems, each application has its own address space. Therefore, the applications are more secure. The kernel handles the services of the operating system, which include the file system, the CPU scheduler, and the memory manager.

Applications request kernel services through system calls. When an application requests a service, the hardware address space of the application changes to the hardware address space of the operating system to execute it. Monolithic operating systems manage the high-level virtual interface on top of the computer hardware. Also, in this, it is possible to add device drivers to the kernel as modules.

What is a layered operating system?

A layered operating system is an operating system that is divided into multiple layers. And, each of these layers performs some kind of functionality. The purpose of developing layered operating systems is to avoid the limitations of monolithic operating systems.

In layered operating systems, all layers exist separately, and modification to one layer does not affect other layers. Therefore, it is also easier to build, maintain, and upgrade layered operating systems. Also, the lower layer handles hardware-related operation, while the higher layer handles user applications.

There are six main layers in layered operating systems. They are the following.

Hardware – Lowest layer in the architecture of the operating system. This handles the hardware devices.

CPU Layer – Handles scheduling tasks and schedules processes for the CPU. 

Memory Management – Manage memory. Moves processes from disk to primary memory for execution and commits executed processes to disk.

Process Management – Manages the processes. This layer allocates the CPU to execute processes.

IO Buffer – Allows users to interact with the system and manages buffers for IO devices, ensuring that IO devices are working properly.

User Programs – The highest layer in the layered operating system and manages the user programs like word processors, browsers, etc.

Difference Between Monolithic and Layered Operating Systems

Definition What’s diff btw monolithic and layered operating systems?

A monolithic operating system is an operating system architecture in which the entire operating system runs in kernel space. In contrast, a layered operating system is an operating system architecture that is divided into a number of layers, each layer performing a specific functionality. Thus, this is the main difference between monolithic and layered operating systems.

Number of levels

The number of tiers is also an important difference between monolithic and layered operating systems. In monolithic operating systems, there are mainly three layers. However, there are more layers to layered operating systems.

conclusion What’s diff btw monolithic and layered operating systems?

Monolithic and layered operating systems are two operating systems. The main difference between monolithic and layered operating systems is that in monolithic operating systems, the entire operating system works in the kernel space, while layered operating systems have multiple layers that perform different tasks.

Mohammad Asif Goraya

M A Goraya has qualification of M.phil in Agricultural Sciences. He has almost 15 years of teaching Experience at college and university level. He likes to share his research based knowledge with his students and audience.

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