Linux system

[srinidhi]

What are the components of a Linux system?

[daark.child]

Your question is really vague. Can you be more precise about the type of information you are looking for.

[oz]

Yeah, that is vague. The way the question is asked, you could simply say it consists of the kernel, configuration files, and applications.

What is the purpose behind the question?

[i92guboj]

What are the components of a Linux system?

Read some wikis and come back again with a more concrete question, so we can aswer. You can start from here:


Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[srinidhi]

Your question is really vague. Can you be more precise about the type of information you are looking for.

Thanks Daark child. The question was not complete. By mistake I posted the incomplete message and I thought I would re-post that message only after getting some reply, otherwise I would've got "duplicate post" message, the same had happened to me before.

My question is - the components of Linux system are ofcourse - Kernel ( which is the core of the operating system ), system libraries, and user programs. Is there any way to execute an application without the Kernel, but provided the system libraries?

For example, considering I have a C program. Can I execute the program without the operating system, but provided the system libraries?

As one of my friends was saying that you can execute a program without an operating system. I was in confusion. So I thought I would post that message and find some solutions.

Hoping for fruition.

Thanks.

[i92guboj]

My question is - the components of Linux system are ofcourse - Kernel ( which is the core of the operating system ), system libraries, and user programs. Is there any way to execute an application without the Kernel, but provided the system libraries?

Strictly speaking, linux is just a kernel. The rest of the stuff, is not really related to the kernel, and has been added afterwards from many sources.

That's why the system is named usually as Linux/GNU.

Linux programs do need a linux kernel to run, because the kernel provides the interfaces to use the hardware. Without a kernel, every application would need to implent a way to handle the hardware itself. This would be highly inefficient.

If a given machine is used only to run a given program, then you can design a program that will be loaded when the machine is turned on and will act as OS for that machine, which purpose is to do just one task. But then you need to worry about all the hardware, the i/o, cpu scheduling (well, not taht much, since it won't be multitasking), memory management and the like itself.

An example of simple application is grub. This tinny bootloader is an application which runs without an OS, and is used to perform a very basic task. It just need basic access to an vga device and to the bios, to be able to check what bootable drives are attached to your pc. Nothing more. But support for more advanced hardware would require tons of drivers and stuff.

So, while possible, running applications without an OS is not something you'd like to do. And it will not work unless the application is designed to do so.

LInux apps rely on glibc, which in turn depends on the kernel headers to be compiled and to work. A linux application could not access your hardware without /proc, which is a live image of the kernel state: the interface between the kernel and the real world.

As one of my friends was saying that you can execute a program without an operating system. I was in confusion. So I thought I would post that message and find some solutions.

Hoping for fruition.

Thanks.

You should ask him what did he exactly mean. That affirmation can have several interpretations. But, in general terms, you can't run any program if you are not running the OS it was designed to run on or an alternative API (like wine) that can understand the OS calls that there are inside the programs and the system libs (glibc in this case).

[srinidhi]

Thanks loads i92guboj. The solution is really appreciable.

Atleast now I can argue with my friend.