Difference between monolithic and microkernel

Question

what is the difference between monolithic and microkernel.

Answer 1

Well explained at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3AOS-structure.svg

Answer 2

The Wikipedia articles are pretty good. However, if you are looking for a more abstract answer, you can draw an analogy to the plugin system in Eclipse. Eclipse provides abstractions over the basic needs of an IDE and depends on plugins to implement language-specific features such as compiler integration. Similarly, a microkernel provides abstractions over low level system details and requires plugins to implement the majority of real features such as file systems and networking protocols.

Answer 3

Please see this answer.