A kernel is a core component of an operating system that manages operations of a computer and its hardware. It is the primary interface between the computers physical hardware and the processes running on it. The kernel is responsible for managing the hardwares resources and executing software programs, as well as overseeing the interactions between these layers. It is the first program loaded into memory when an operating system is loaded and remains in memory until the operating system is shut down again.

The kernel has several important jobs, such as process and memory management, disk storage, and low-level networking. It controls all of the main functions of the hardware, whether its a tablet, desktop, server, or any other kind of device. The kernel is responsible for managing the underlying system hardware devices, loading and managing less-critical OS components such as device drivers, organizing and managing threads and the various processes spawned by running applications, and scheduling which applications can access and use the kernel.

Modern computers divide memory into kernel space and user space. User space is where application software is executed, while the kernel space is dedicated to the behind-the-scenes work needed to run a computer, like memory allocation and process management. Because of this separation of kernel and user spaces, the work done by the kernel isnt typically visible to the user.