“Everything starts with at the Kernel. Operating systems are
using Privilege Rings.These rings are created by CPU and not by OS. Any OS kernel
operates in Ring 0 which is most privileged level and can
comunicate directly to the hardware and the CPU. Rings 1 and 2 are
commonly used for device drivers. And ring 3 is used for user-space
applications (media players, web servers and anything else user can
communicate to directly). Device drivers are a „bridge”
between user-space applications and hardware. You should note that
in Linux rings 1 and 2 are NOT used (at least this is what I found
out…), because Linux drivers are compilled directly into
kernel or as a dynamic kernel modules (in both cases drivers appear
in at a Ring 0).
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
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