| | Reference.com/Encyclopedia/Kernel (computer science) |
 | | Since there are many programs, and access to the hardware is limited, the kernel is also responsible for deciding when and how long a program should be able to make use of a piece of hardware, which is called multiplexing. |
 | | This is due in large part to the overhead of moving in and out of the kernel, a context switch, in order to move data between the various applications and servers. |
 | | The design of Linux as a monolithic kernel rather than a microkernel was the topic of a famous flame war (or what then passed for flaming) between Linus Torvalds and Andrew Tanenbaum. |
| www.reference.com /browse/wiki/Monolithic_kernel (1836 words) |