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1. Andrew+(OP)[view] [source] 2010-04-07 15:05:00
I'm not an expert, but I'll give it a try.

A hypervisor runs multiple Operating Systems, having each one think that it has access to the whole of the hardware.

A microkernel is one way of writing the kernel of the Operating System, so that each part of it is a separate process, routing messages to each other in a safe manner to get things done, rather than doing direct calls to each others code.

With a hypervisor you wouldn't expect each of the OSes to have any communication with each other at all, whereas with a microkernel you'd expect the different processes to talk to each other a lot.

You can, apparently, repurpose a microkernel as a hypervisor, but I don't know anything about that at all. Presumably the infrastructure is quite similar.

replies(2): >>gaius+j1 >>soren+L3
2. gaius+j1[view] [source] 2010-04-07 15:29:49
>>Andrew+(OP)
Yes, the Mach microkernel can host multiple OSs. In practice this is rarely done.
3. soren+L3[view] [source] 2010-04-07 16:25:04
>>Andrew+(OP)
An example for a microkernel running a Linux OS is L4Linux (http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/L4/LinuxOnL4/overview.shtml).

There is a lot of controversy about the distinction between VMMs and microkernels. A view from the microkernel side is given in http://www.ertos.nicta.com.au/publications/papers/Heiser_UL_...

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