Linux Architecture

Linux Architecture

Below diagram depicts the Linux Architecture:

Linux Architecture

Hardware: Computer hardware includes processor, Ream Memory, Key Board, Monitor, Hard Disk etc.. Collectively the integration of these hardware components called System or Server. 

Operating System: Operating System is  the interface program between users and  computer to  request certain tasks to be  executed and fulfill the request.Operating System has Kernel as main core program to  talk to the hardware in machine language.

Kernel: The kernel is the core component  of the operating system. Kernel  interacts with hardware to handle the tasks like task scheduling and file management, memory management.

Shell: The shell is the utility interacts with the user. Shell will translate the users requests to  kernel in kernel  understanding language/format.  When user type in a command at Linux  terminal, the shell interprets the command and calls the program that user  want. Operating supports many Shell programs to  handle different user requests.

C Shell, Bourne Shell and Korn Shell are most famous shells which are available with most of the Linux  variants.

Applications: Applications are small  programs that runs on operating system which are using the Shell to interact with the kernel and  fulfill certain services to the users. Applications are like FTP, DNS, Apache HTTP, DHCP used to  customize or  configure the system for certain use cases.

Users Who actually uses the system for various  needs, users can call the Shell Program directly or can run applications and  applications can use Shell programs which interprets the requests to Kernel.