Comparison of operating system kernels

This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (April 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

|

Short description: None

A kernel is a component of a computer operating system.[1] It serves as an intermediary connecting software to hardware, enabling them to work together seamlessly.[2] A comparison of system kernels can provide insight into the design and architectural choices made by the developers of particular operating systems.

## Contents

* 1 Comparison criteria
* 2 Feature overview
* 3 Failure analysis and availability
* 4 Scalability and clustering
* 5 Realtime support
* 6 Transport protocol support
* 6.1 Data link layer and Tunneling protocol support
* 7 Inter-process communication support
* 8 In-kernel security
* 9 In-kernel virtualization
* 10 In-kernel server support
* 11 Binary format support
* 12 File system support
* 13 Networked file system support
* 14 Pseudo file system support
* 15 Supported CPU instruction sets and microarchitectures
* 16 Supported GPU processors
* 17 Supported kernel execution environment
* 18 Supported cipher algorithms
* 19 Supported compression algorithms
* 20 Supported message digest algorithms
* 21 Supported Bluetooth protocols
* 22 Audio support
* 23 Graphics support
* 24 See also
* 25 Footnotes

## Comparison criteria

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available operating system kernels. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.

Even though there are a large number and variety of available Linux distributions, all of these kernels are grouped under a single entry in these tables, due to the differences among them being of the patch level. See comparison of Linux distributions for a detailed comparison. Linux distributions that have highly modified kernels — for example, real-time computing kernels — should be listed separately. There are also a wide variety of minor BSD operating systems, many of which can be found at comparison of BSD operating systems.

The tables specifically do not include subjective viewpoints on the merits of each kernel or operating system.

## Feature overview

The major contemporary general-purpose kernels are shown in comparison. Only an overview of the technical features is detailed.

Kernel name  | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Used in  | Creator  | Executable
format
(also see
section
below)  | Type  | Integrated firewall | SMP support  | Multiple architecture
support
(also see
section below).  | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Virtualization | Security | Profiling/Debugging | Soft real-time support  | Hard real-time support  | Can keep RTC in UT[3]

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Amiga Exec |  | AmigaOS | Commodore International | HUNK | Exokernel (atypical)[4] | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No
Amiga Exec SG (2nd Generation) |  | AmigaOS 4 | Hyperion Entertainment | ELF/HUNK | Exokernel (atypical)[5] | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | ?
DragonFly BSD kernel | C | DragonFly BSD | Matt Dillon  | ELF | hybrid | Ipfirewall,
PF | Yes  | No  | Yes  | chroot, jail, vkernel  | Unix permissions | DDB, KGDB | ?  | ?  | ?
FreeBSD kernel | C | FreeBSD,

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, Gentoo/FreeBSD, Orbis OS

| The FreeBSD Project | ELF, others - platform dependent  | monolithic | IPFilter, Ipfirewall,
PF | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | chroot, jail, bhyve | Unix permissions, POSIX.1e and NFSv4 ACLs,[6][7] Capsicum, TrustedBSD MAC, OpenBSM | KDB, DDB, KGDB, DTrace, hwpmc  | Yes  | ?  | Yes
GNU Hurd | C | GNU/Hurd (Arch Hurd, Debian GNU/Hurd)  | GNU Project/Free Software Foundation | ELF | multiserver microkernel | No  | Partial[8] | No  | Yes  | chroot, Xen | Unix permissions, POSIX ACL, POSIX Capabilities | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
GNU Mach | C | part of GNU Hurd, used in GNU/Hurd | GNU Project/Free Software Foundation | ELF | microkernel | No  | Partial[8] | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Inferno kernel |  | Inferno | Bell Labs / Vita Nuova Holdings  | ?  | virtual machine | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | chroot, Xen | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
L4 |  | L4 | Jochen Liedtke  | None  | microkernel | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Afterburner/L4 [1], Marzipan [2], capabilities in L4/Fiasco[9] | L4/Fiasco[9] | L4/Fiasco[9] | ?  | ?
Linux kernel | C | Linux (kernel), Android, Ubuntu, CentOS, webOS, Fire OS, Firefox OS, ChromeOS, Syllable Server, Mastodon Linux, OpenBSD/Linux, Plan 9/Linux, Sailfish OS, Tizen, amongst others.  | Linus Torvalds[10] | ELF, others  | monolithic |

* Ipfirewall (1.1 –)
* ipchains (2.2 –)
* Netfilter (2.4 –)
* nftables (3.13 –)
* XDP (4.8 –)

| Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | cgroups, chroot, Lguest, Xen, KVM, kvm-lite, LXC | Unix permissions, POSIX ACL, POSIX Capabilities, keyctl, LSM (SELinux, SMACK, TOMOYO Linux, AppArmor)  | OProfile, kprobe, SystemTap, JProbe, ftrace, KDB, KGDB, kernel marker, perf tools, eBPF | preempt=full, threadirqs  | PREEMPT RT, CPU task isolation[11] | Yes
Compute Node Linux  |  | Compute Node Linux  | Cray Inc.  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Mach | C | NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP for Mach, Tru64 UNIX and MkLinux | Carnegie Mellon University | Mach-O | microkernel, hybrid kernel | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?
MINIX 3 kernel | C | MINIX 3 | Andrew S. Tanenbaum | ELF,[12] a.out[13][14] | microkernel | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Unix permissions | Call profiling, statistical profiling, Minix Debugger (mdb)  | No  | No  | ?
NetBSD kernel | C | NetBSD,

GNU/kNetBSD (Debian GNU/NetBSD),

| The NetBSD Project | ELF, others - platform dependent  | monolithic, anykernel using rump kernel architecture  | IPFilter, PF, NPF | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Xen, chroot | kauth, Unix permissions | DDB, KGDB, tprof  | POSIX real-time scheduling extensions  | Kernel preemption [15] | Yes
NetWare kernel |  | NetWare | Novell | NLM | hybrid | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
OpenBSD kernel | C | OpenBSD | OpenBSD developers  | ELF, others - platform dependent  | monolithic | PF | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Unix permissions | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
OS/2 kernel  |  | OS/2 version 2 and above  | IBM | LX  | hybrid | No  | Yes  | No PowerPC version developed but never officially released. | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | ?
Plan 9 kernel  | C | Plan 9 from Bell Labs | Bell Labs | ?  | monolithic | ipmux  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
ReactOS kernel | C | ReactOS | ReactOS Foundation  | PE | hybrid | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?
Rockbox kernel |  | Rockbox | The Rockbox Project  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
SunOS kernel | C | SunOS | Sun Microsystems | a.out
| monolithic | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Unix permissions | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Solaris kernel | C | Solaris,

OpenSolaris, GNU/kOpenSolaris (Nexenta OS)

| Sun Microsystems | ELF (32-bit only until
Solaris 7 in 1998)  | monolithic |

* IPFilter,
* PF (since Oracle Solaris 11.3)

| Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Zones, chroot | Unix permissions, ACL, RBAC, Auditing, Privileges, Zones, Trusted Extensions | DTrace, CPU profiling, microstate accounting, perf counters, kernel lock stats, kstats, mdb, kmdb  | Real-time scheduler  | ?  | Yes
SVR5 kernel  | C | UnixWare 7, OpenServer 6  | Santa Cruz Operation | ELF | monolithic | IPFilter | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | Unix permissions | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes
Trix kernel |  | Trix | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | a.out | monolithic | ?  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
VMkernel  | C | VMware ESXi  | VMware | ELF | monolithic | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Unix permissions | Built-in debugger  | ?  | ?  | Yes
Windows NT kernel  | C | All Windows NT family systems, 2000,
XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server  | Microsoft | PE | hybrid | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Hyper-V | ACL, Privileges  | Event Tracing,[16] dgbss, kd  | Multimedia Class Scheduler Service  | No  | Unofficial[17]
Windows 9x kernel  | C++ | Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me | Microsoft | PE | monolithic |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
XNU (Darwin kernel)  | C, C++ | macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS,

OpenDarwin, PureDarwin GNU/Darwin

| Apple Inc. | Mach-O | hybrid | Ipfirewall,
PF (starting in Lion)  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | chroot | Unix permissions, NT/NFSv4 ACLs, TrustedBSD MAC, OpenBSM | KDB, DDB, DTrace | Yes  | No  | Yes
SPARTAN kernel | C | HelenOS | Jakub Jermar  | ELF | microkernel | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Zircon  | C++ | Fuchsia OS | Google | ELF | microkernel | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Lguest, Xen, KVM, kvm-lite  | Yes  | KDB, DDB, GDB | Yes  | No  | Yes

## Failure analysis and availability

Kernel Name  | Kernel Log  | Serious system error report  | Fatal system error report  | Kernel crash dump | Kernel debugger | Hardware error detection  | Software RAID  | Remote storage replication  | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Kernel live patching | Kernel live update

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

DragonFly BSD kernel | Yes  | ?  | Kernel panic | ?  | ddb  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
FreeBSD kernel | kern.msgbuf in sysctl  | ?  | Kernel panic | Yes[18][lower-alpha 1] | ddb[18] | ?  | GEOM, ZFS | (HAST in user-space)  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?
Linux kernel | kmsg | Linux kernel oops | Kernel panic / drm_panic  | kdump[19][lower-alpha 2] | KDB / KGDB[20] | EDAC (formerly Bluesmoke)  | md, LVM | DRBD[21][22] | Yes[23] | Yes[24] | livepatch[25] | Kexec HandOver / Live Update Orchestrator[26]
NetBSD kernel | Yes  | ?  | Kernel panic | ?  | DDB / KGDB | ?  | RAIDframe, ZFS | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
OpenBSD kernel | Yes  | ?  | Kernel panic | Yes[27] | ddb  | ?  | softraid  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Solaris kernel | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | System core dump[28][lower-alpha 3] | mdb  | ereport  | Solaris Volume Manager, ZFS | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Windows NT kernel  | NT Kernel Logger in ETW | Stop Error (Blue Screen of Death)  | Kernel-mode Dump | KD  | WHEA | Storage Spaces / Disk Management  | Storage Replica / DFS Replication  | Dynamic Hardware Partitioning[29] | Hotpatch[30] | ?
XNU | Yes  | ?  | Kernel panic | ?  | ddb / kdp  | ?  | AppleRAID  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Zircon  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?

1. ↑ Can be debugged using kgdb(1)
2. ↑ Can be debugged using crash(8)
3. ↑ Can be debugged using mdb(1)

## Scalability and clustering

Kernel Name  | Supported number of CPU cores  | NUMA support  | Computer cluster interconnect  | Application checkpointing

Process migration | Single system image | Clustered file system

|
|
|
|
|
|

Remote direct memory access (RDMA) support  | InfiniBand support  | RDMA over Thunderbolt support  | PCI Express
Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB) support  | CXL 3.1
inter-host communication with GIM support
DragonFly BSD kernel | 256[31] | Partial[31] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | sys_checkpoint[32] | planned[33] | HAMMER2
FreeBSD kernel  | 1024[34] | Yes[35] | Yes[36] | Yes[37] | ?  | Yes[38] | ?  | ?  | No  | pNFS[39]
Linux kernel | 8192[40] | Yes[41] | Yes  | Yes  | (thunderbolt-ibverbs)  | Yes[42] | No  | Checkpoint/Restart  | (openMosix / OpenSSI / Kerrighed / MattX)  | pNFS / Ceph / OCFS2 / GFS2
Solaris kernel  | 512[43] | Yes  | Yes  | Yes[44] | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | No  | PxFS
Windows NT kernel  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | Cluster Shared Volumes
XNU | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes[45] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Xsan

## Realtime support

Kernel Name  | Full kernel preemption | Prevent priority inversion (Priority inheritance)  | Realtime Scheduling  | Realtime Priority  | Realtime I/O  | CPU Isolation  | Disable CPU's Interrupt request (IRQ) handling  | Disable CPU's timer ticks | Prevent memory from being swapped out  | Cache coloring

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

kernel threads | interrupt handlers | lock sections | kernel space  | userland
DragonFly BSD kernel | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | mlock/mlockall system call | ?
FreeBSD kernel | FULL_PREEMPTION (only for debugging)[46] | No[46] | ?  | UMUTEX_PRIO_INHERIT on _umtx_op[47] | SCHED FIFO / SCHED RR on ULE scheduler[48] | rtprio system call[48][49] | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes, since FreeBSD 9.0[50] | mlock/mlockall system call[51][52] | Yes[53]
Linux kernel | preempt=full[54] | threadirqs  | PREEMPT RT[55] | RT-mutex / (mutex with Proxy Execution[56])  | PI-futexes[57] | SCHED FIFO / SCHED RR on CFS/EEVDF | rtprio system call  | IOPRIO_CLASS_RT[58] | isolcpus[54] | irqaffinity  | nohz_full[59] | mlock/mlockall system call  | No[60]
NetBSD kernel | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | mlock/mlockall system call  | Yes[61]
OpenBSD kernel | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | mlock/mlockall system call  | ?
Solaris kernel | Yes[62] | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes[63] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | mlock/mlockall system call  | Yes[64]
Windows NT kernel  | Yes[65] | ?  | ?  | ?  | AutoBoost[66] | REALTIME_PRIORITY_CLASS  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Windows 8 and later[67] | VirtualLock  | ?
XNU | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | os_unfair_lock[68] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | mlock system call  | ?
Zircon  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?

## Transport protocol support

Kernel Name  | Internet layer (L3)  | Transport layer (L4)  | L4S Congestion controls

|
|
|

IPv4 | IPv6 | IPSec  | TCP | Multipath TCP | UDP | UDP-Lite | SCTP  | DCCP  | QUIC | Accurate ECN (AccECN)  | TCP Prague  | Dual-Queue Coupled Active Queue Management
DragonFly BSD kernel | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
FreeBSD kernel | Yes  | Yes  | Yes[69] | Yes  | Unofficial patch exists[70] | Yes  | Yes[71] | Yes[72] | Unofficial patches exist[73][74][75][76] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Linux kernel | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Partial[77] | Yes  | dropped in 7.1[78] | Yes  | dropped in 6.16[79] | Unofficial[80] | Yes[81][82] | (Linux kernel tree with L4S patches)  | DualPI2 qdisc[83][84]
NetBSD kernel | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ? | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
OpenBSD kernel | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Solaris kernel | Yes  | Yes  | Yes[85] | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Windows NT kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes[86] | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ? | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
XNU | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Zircon  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ? | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?

### Data link layer and Tunneling protocol support

Kernel Name  | Data link layer (L2)  | L2 over L2  | L2 segmentation  | layer 2.5 (L2.5)  | L2 over L2.5  | L2 over L3  | L3 over L3  | L2 over L4

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

PPP | Ethernet | PPPoE | IEEE 802.1Q (VLAN)  | IEEE 802.1ad (QinQ)  | MPLS | VLL Epipe (VPWS)  | L2TPv3 | L2 GRE | L3 GRE  | Mobile IP Minimal Tunneling[87] | IP in IP (IPIP)[88] | 6in4 (SIT)[89] | PPTP | L2TP | VXLAN
DragonFly BSD kernel | Yes[90] | Yes | ? | Yes[91] | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes[92] | gif[93] | ? | ? | ?
FreeBSD kernel | Legacy kernel PPP[94][lower-alpha 1] and netgraph-based kernel PPP[95] | Yes | Yes[96] | Yes[97] | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes[98] | Yes[99] | gif[100] | ? | ? | Yes[101]
Linux kernel | Yes[102] | Yes[103] | Yes[104] | Yes[105] | Yes[106] | ? | Yes[107] | ? | Yes[108] | No | Yes[109] | Yes[110] | No[lower-alpha 2] | Yes[111] | Yes[112]
NetBSD kernel | Yes[113] | Yes | Yes[114] | Yes[115] | ? | Yes[116] | ? | l2tp interface[117] | ? | Yes[118] | gif[119] | ? | ? | ?
OpenBSD kernel | Yes[120] | Yes | Yes[121] | Yes[122] | svlan[122] | ? | mpw[123] | ? | egre[124] | Yes[124] | No | ? | gif[125] | ? | ? | Yes[126]
Solaris kernel | Yes[127] | Yes | Yes[128] | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No | Yes | ? | No[lower-alpha 2] | No[lower-alpha 2] | Yes
Windows NT kernel  | ? | Yes | raspppoe.sys[129] | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes[130] | No | ipinip.sys[131] | No[132] | raspptp.sys[133] | rasl2tp.sys[133] | Yes
XNU | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No | gif | ? | ? | ?
Zircon  | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?

1. ↑ Dropped since FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Implemented in user-space only

## Inter-process communication support

Kernel Name  | Signal | Messaging | Shared memory | Stream-oriented  | Kernel-assisted Remote Procedure Call

|
|
|
|
|

Message queue (Mailbox)  | between kernel and userspace  | Anonymous  | Named  | Pipe | Local socket | Pseudo terminal
Anonymous pipe | Named pipe
FreeBSD kernel  | Yes  | POSIX/System V | AF_ROUTE and AF NETLINK sockets[134][135] | SHM_ANON[136] | Yes  | Bidirectional[137] | Yes  | AF_UNIX  | posix_openpt,[138] and UNIX 98 and BSD-style compatibility module[139] | ?
XNU | Yes  | POSIX | AF_ROUTE and AF_SYSTEM sockets, Mach IPC  | ? | Yes  | Unidirectional  | Yes  | AF_UNIX  | UNIX 98 and BSD  | Mach IPC
DragonFly BSD kernel  | Yes  | ? | ? | ? | Yes  | Bidirectional  | Yes  | AF_UNIX  | UNIX 98 and BSD[140] | ?
NetBSD kernel  | Yes  | ? | AF_ROUTE sockets  | ? | Yes  | Unidirectional  | Yes  | AF_UNIX  | UNIX 98, BSD and OpenBSD (ptm)[141][142] | ?
OpenBSD kernel  | Yes  | ? | AF_ROUTE sockets  | ? | Yes  | Bidirectional  | Yes  | AF_UNIX  | BSD and OpenBSD (ptm)[143] | ?
Linux | Yes  | POSIX/System V  | AF NETLINK sockets | memfd  | POSIX/System V  | Unidirectional  | Yes  | AF_UNIX  | UNIX 98 and BSD  | Binder
Solaris kernel  | Yes  | POSIX/System V  | ? | ? | Yes  | Bidirectional[144] | Yes  | AF_UNIX  | UNIX 98 and BSD  | Doors
Windows NT kernel  | ? | MailSlot[145] | ? | ? | Yes | Unidirectional  | NPFS | AF_UNIX[146] | No  | ALPC

## In-kernel security

Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | File access control  | Disable memory execution support  | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Mandatory access control | Capability-based security | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Audit API  | Sandbox | SYN flood protection  | UDP flood protection  | Ping flood protection  | Smurf attack protection  | Network Behavior Analysis

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Traditional Unix permissions, POSIX ACL | Yes  | Yes  | LSM (SELinux, SMACK, TOMOYO Linux, AppArmor)  | Yes  | keyctl  | fanotify / inotify | SELinux Sandbox, seccomp | SYN cookies | hashlimit module / intermediate lockless queues[147] | ICMP rate limiting  | reverse path filtering  | Netfilter
Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Traditional Unix permissions, POSIX and NFSv4 ACL | Yes  | Yes  | TrustedBSD MAC[148] | In-kernel privilege division, and Capsicum[149][150] | ?  | OpenBSM / inotify[151] | Capsicum, MAC framework[150][152] | SYN cookies | ?  | ICMP rate limiting  | ?  | ?
Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Traditional Unix permissions, POSIX ACL, NFSv4 ACL | Default  | ?  | Solaris Trusted Extensions | Process privileges[153] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Access control list | DEP  | Yes  | Mandatory Integrity Control  | Process security tokens, and AppContainers  | No  | Yes  | Windows Event Log  | Yes[154] | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?
Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Traditional Unix permissions, NT/NFSv4 ACL[155] | Yes  | Yes  | TrustedBSD MAC  | ?  | ?  | OpenBSM | Apple XNU Sandbox  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Kernel  | Code signing | Prevent BYOVD attack  | Runtime integrity checking  | Application Whitelisting  | Verifying

|
|
|
|
|

Kernel (Secure Boot)  | Kernel driver  | Application  | block device  | filesystem
Linux  | Yes  | Module signature verification[156] | IMA / EVM[157] | ? | (Linux Kernel Runtime Guard[158])  | ? | dm-verity[159][160] | fs-verity[161][162]
FreeBSD kernel  | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?
NetBSD kernel  | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | veriexec[163] | ? | ?
Solaris kernel  | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?
Windows NT kernel  | Yes  | Kernel-Mode Code Signing[164] | ? | Vulnerable Driver Blocklist[165] | PatchGuard[lower-alpha 1], HyperGuard[lower-alpha 2] | AppLocker[163] | ? | Windows Resource Protection
XNU  | ? | kext signing  | ? | ? | Kernel Patch Protection[166] | ? | ? | ?

1. ↑ a.k.a. Kernel Patch Protection
2. ↑ a.k.a. Secure Kernel PatchGuard

## In-kernel virtualization

Kernel Name  | Container
(no resource management,
no security)  | Container
(no resource management)  | Container
(resource management)  | Paravirtualization | Full virtualization | User-space execution  | Kernel as Library | Kernel as Kernel Driver  | Hypervisor-Enforced Kernel Partitioning

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Linux  | chroot | LXC | Virtio, Hyper-V (guest only), Xen (guest only), VMI (guest only), kvm-lite, lguest | KVM | UML | (LKL)  | (coLinux)  | No
DragonFly BSD kernel  | chroot  | jail | No  | No  | vkernel  | ?  | ?  | No
FreeBSD kernel  | chroot  | jail | Virtio, Xen[167] | bhyve | ?  | ?  | ?  | No
NetBSD kernel  | chroot  | (sysjail (discontinued))  | No  | Virtio, Xen[168] | No  | ?  | Rump kernel | ?  | No
OpenBSD kernel  | chroot  | No  | No  | Xen (guest only)[169] | Yes[170] | No  | No  | No  | No
Solaris kernel  | chroot  | Solaris Containers / Zones  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | No
Windows NT kernel  | AppContainers, Job Objects, Windows Server Containers  | Hyper-V  | Project Drawbridge | No  | Virtual Secure Mode, Device Guard, Credential Guard[171]
XNU  | chroot  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes[172] | ?  | ?  | ?  | No

## In-kernel server support

Kernel Name  | HTTP | FTP  | NFS  | CIFS  | Name server | Transport-layer load balancer  | Application-layer load balancer  | 9P | TLS proxy  | WAF | Memcached server

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Linux kernel | (TUX web server patch)  | (TUX web server patch)  | knfsd  | ksmbd[173][174] | ?  | IP Virtual Server | (KTCPVS)  | (patch available)  | SOL_TLS[175] | (Tempesta FW)[176] | (kmemcached)
DragonFly BSD kernel | No  | No  | Up to NFS v3  | Yes  | ?  | Yes[177] | ?  | No  | No  | ?  | ?
FreeBSD kernel | No  | No  | Yes[178][179][180] | No  | No  | Yes[181] | No  | No  | ktls[182] | ?  | ?
Solaris kernel | ?  | ?  | Yes  | Yes[183] | ?  | Yes[184] | Yes[184] | ?  | KSSL  | ?  | ?
Windows NT kernel  | HTTP.sys | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?
XNU | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?

## Binary format support

A comparison of OS kernel support for different binary formats (executables):

Name  | a.out | ECOFF | ELF | FDPIC
ELF
binaries
(mmu less)  | flat
binaries
(superH)  | HUNK | Mach-O | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | PE | SOM
(PA-RISC,
HP-UX)  | NLM | PEF | DOS COM | MZ | LE | LX | NE

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Amiga Exec | No  | No  | Yes[185] | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
DragonFly BSD kernel  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
FreeBSD kernel  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
HP-UX kernel  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Linux | Dropped[186][187] | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | ?  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
MINIX 3 | Some[13][14] | No  | Yes[12] | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
NetBSD kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Dropped[188] | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
OpenBSD kernel  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
ReactOS kernel  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Solaris kernel  | Yes[189] | No  | Yes[190] | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Windows NT kernel  | No  | No  | Yes with WSL | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No[lower-alpha 1] | No[lower-alpha 1] | ?  | ?  | No[lower-alpha 1]
XNU | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Supported by Win32 subsystem in user-space on x86

## File system support

Physical file systems:

Kernel  | Acorn ADFS | Amiga FFS  | APFS  | BeFS  | BFS | cramfs | EFS | ext2 | ext3 | ext4 | F2FS | FAT | FreeVxFS  | HFS | HFS+  | HPFS | ISO 9660 | JFFS  | JFFS2 | JFS  | MINIX fs | NSS | NTFS | OCFS  | QNX4 FS  | System V FS  | UDF | UFS | XFS | ZFS | ReiserFS | Reiser4 | Btrfs | HAMMER | Tux3 | exFAT | ReFS

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

DragonFly BSD kernel | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | limited write  | No  | No  | No  | read only  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No
FreeBSD kernel | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Support dropped since 10.0-RELEASE[191][192] | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | read only  | Yes  | read only  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | No
Linux kernel | Yes
[193] | Yes  | Unofficial
[194] | read only  | Yes  | Yes  | read only  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | read only  | Yes  | limited write (only with empty journal)  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Full read/write support since 5.15[195] | Yes  | Yes
[193]
[196] | write support?  | Yes  | Yes
[193] | Yes  | 3rd-party module  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No
MINIX 3 kernel | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | Tools available, cannot mount  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
NetBSD kernel  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
NetWare kernel  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | No
OpenBSD kernel  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Read only  | No  | No  | No  | Read only  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
ReactOS kernel | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes
[197] | Yes
[197] | Yes
[197] | No  | Yes
[197] | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes
[197] | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Read only  | No  | No  | No  | Yes
[197] | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes[198][197] | No  | No  | No  | No
Solaris kernel | ?  | ?  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | No
Windows NT kernel  | ?  | ?  | Unofficial
[194] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Unofficial
[199] | Unofficial
[200] | Unofficial
[200] | No  | Yes  | ?  | Unofficial
[194] | Unofficial
[194] | No  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | Unofficial
[201] | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes
XNU | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Unofficial
[202] | Unofficial
[202] | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Read only  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Official support was abandoned; 3rd-party modules available  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No

## Networked file system support

Kernel Name  | NFS | AFS | CIFS  | Coda | 9P | Ceph

|
|
|
|
|
|

DragonFly BSD kernel | Up to NFSv3  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No
FreeBSD kernel | Yes[180][203] | Yes  | Yes[204] | Yes  | No  | Yes
Linux kernel | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes
NetBSD kernel  | Up to NFSv3  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
OpenBSD kernel  | Up to NFSv3  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Solaris kernel | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No
Windows NT kernel  | Up to NFSv3[205] | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No
XNU | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No

## Pseudo file system support

Kernel Name  | Device File System | Process File System (procfs)  | Interface for user-space file systems

|
|
|

DragonFly BSD kernel  | devfs  | Yes  | FUSE
FreeBSD kernel  | devfs[206] | Obsoleted[207] | FUSE[208]
Linux | devtmpfs  | Yes  | FUSE
NetBSD kernel  | No  | Yes  | PUFFS
OpenBSD kernel  | No  | No  | FUSE
Solaris kernel  | devfs  | Yes  | FUSE (3rd-party implementation)
XNU | devfs  | No  | FUSE (Unofficial implementation)

## Supported CPU instruction sets and microarchitectures

See also: Software:List of Linux-supported computer architectures

kernel | HP | Softbank,
ARM Holdings | Intel | MIPS | IBM | Renesas Electronics  | Oracle | NXP  | Analog Devices  | Xilinx | Cadence | Canon,
Axis Comm.  | Socionext | Microchip,
Atmel | CML,
Hyperstone  | Intel,
Altera | WDC  | Sunplus Technology  | NVIDIA  | TI

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

VAX | Alpha | PA-RISC | ARM | x86 | i960  | IA-64 | MIPS | PowerPC | S/390  | z/Arch  | H8300  | M16C  | M32R | 78K  | V850 | SuperH | SPARC | m68k  | Blackfin (no-mmu)  | MicroBlaze  | Xtensa  | ETRAX CRIS | FR-V  | MN10300  | AVR32 | E1 (no-mmu)  | Nios (no-mmu)  | Nios II  | WDC 65C816  | S+core | Tilera | C6X
mmu  | no-mmu  | 64-bit mmu  | IA-32 | x86-64 | mmu  | no-mmu  | 32-bit  | 64-bit  | mmu  | no-mmu  | 32-bit  | 64-bit  | no-mmu  | mmu  | no-mmu  | mmu  | no-mmu  | mmu  | no-mmu
DragonFly BSD kernel | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
FreeBSD kernel | No  | 6.4 and below only[209] | No  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Projected to end in 15.x[209] | Yes  | No  | 10.4 and below only[209] | 13.5 and below only[209] | No  | Projected to end in 15.x[209] | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | 12.x and below only[209] | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
Linux kernel | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | 6.7 and below only  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | 4.16 and below only[210] | No  | 2.6 and below only  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | 4.16 and below only[210] | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | 4.16 and below only[210] | 4.16 and below only[210] | 4.16 and below only[210] | 4.12 and below only  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | 4.16 and below only[210] | 4.16 and below only[210] | Yes
MINIX 3 kernel | ?  | No  | No  | Yes  | ?  | No  | Yes  | In progress  | No  | No  | In progress  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | No  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
NetBSD kernel | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No[211] | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | No[211] | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | No[211] | Yes  | Yes  | No[211] | Yes  | No[211] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
NetWare kernel  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
OpenBSD kernel | last supported release 5.8[212] | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | No  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Rockbox kernel | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Solaris kernel | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Dropped since Oracle Solaris 11 (11/11)[213] | Yes  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | Only in Solaris 2.5.1  | No  | No  | Only available as a separated version of OpenSolaris | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | No  | Dropped since Solaris 10[214] | Yes  | ?  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Windows NT kernel  | No  | NT 5.0 RC1 and below only  | No  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | XP and 2003-2008 R2 only  | NT 4.0 and below only  | No  | NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 only  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
Windows CE kernel | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | No  | No  | Yes  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | No  | ?  | No  | Yes  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
XNU | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
SPARTAN kernel | ?  | No  | No  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | No  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
FreeRTOS kernel | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes[215] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes[215] | ?  | ?  | No  | Yes[215] | ?  | ?  | Yes[215] | Yes[215] | ?  | Yes[215] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes[215] | Yes[215] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes[215] | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes[215] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
VMkernel  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes[216] | Dropped since VMware ESXi 4.0[217][218] | Yes[217] | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No[215] | No  | No  | No  | No
Zircon  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No

## Supported GPU processors

Kernel name  | Intel  | NVIDIA  | AMD Radeon  | ARM Mali | Qualcomm | Imagination Technologies | Broadcom | VeriSilicon | Apple

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

GMA[lower-alpha 1] | GT[lower-alpha 2] | Xe[lower-alpha 3] | GeForce/Quadro/Tesla | Xenos/TeraScale | GCN/RDNA/CDNA  | Utgard | Midgard/Bifrost | Valhall | Adreno | PowerVR | VideoCore4  | Vivante[lower-alpha 4] | AGX
Linux kernel | i915 driver  | xe driver[219] | nouveau (C), Nova (Rust)[220] | radeon driver  | amdgpu driver[221] | Lima[222][223] | Panfrost[223] | Panthor (C), Tyr (Rust)[224] | msm driver  | imagination driver[225] | vc4 driver[226] | etnaviv[227] | (Asahi driver)[228]
NetBSD | i915drmkms driver[lower-alpha 5][229] | ? | nouveau driver[lower-alpha 5][229] | radeon driver[lower-alpha 5][229] | amdgpu driver[lower-alpha 5][229] | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ?
Windows NT kernel  | Dropped[lower-alpha 6] | Yes[232] | Yes  | Dropped[lower-alpha 7] | Yes  | No  | Windows Phone 8.x, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows on ARM | Yes[234] | No[235] | Windows IoT Enterprise on Arm[236] | No
XNU | Yes (macOS)[237] | No[lower-alpha 8] | No[lower-alpha 9] | ? | No  | No  | via I/O Kit (iOS only)  | No  | No  | iOS/macOS

1. ↑ Intel 9xx/Gxx/Qxx
2. ↑ Intel HD Graphics/Iris/UHD Graphics
3. ↑ Iris Xe Graphics/Intel Arc
4. ↑ Used in NXP i.MX family
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 ported from Linux
6. ↑ Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Drivers were supported up to Windows 8.1.[230][231]
7. ↑ AMD drivers for pre-GCN GPUs were supported up to Windows 10.[233]
8. ↑ Quadro & GeForce macOS Driver was supported up to macOS High Sierra (10.13).[238]
9. ↑ Radeon Mac Edition drivers were supported up to Mac OS X 10.4.[239][240][241]

## Supported kernel execution environment

This table indicates, for each kernel, what operating systems' executable images and device drivers can be run by that kernel.

Kernel name  | Linux | Darwin | Windows NT | FreeBSD | NetBSD | Solaris | OSF/1  | Amiga Unix | SunOS | BSD/OS  | iBCS2 systems  | IRIX | Ultrix | NDIS | SVR4

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

FreeBSD kernel | Yes[242] | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Dropped[243] | Dropped[244]
Linux kernel | Yes  | No  | (Longene)  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | (NDISwrapper)  | No
NetBSD kernel | Yes[245] | Dropped[188] | Dropped[246][247] | Yes[245] | Yes  | Yes[245] | Dropped[248] | Yes[245] | Yes[245] | Yes[245] | Dropped[249] | Dropped[250] | Yes[245] | Dropped[251][252] | Dropped[253]
OpenBSD kernel | Dropped since OpenBSD 6.0[254] | No  | No  | Dropped since OpenBSD 5.0[255] | Dropped since OpenBSD 4.2[256] | No  | No  | No  | Dropped since OpenBSD 4.8[257] | Dropped since OpenBSD 4.8[257] | Dropped since OpenBSD 4.8[257] | No  | Dropped since OpenBSD 4.8[257] | No  | Dropped since OpenBSD 5.0[255]
Windows NT kernel  | Windows Subsystem for Linux 1 | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No
ReactOS kernel | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | ?  | No
XNU | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
VMkernel  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No

## Supported cipher algorithms

This may be usable on some situations like file system encrypting.

Kernel name  | DES | AES | Blowfish  | Triple DES  | Serpent | Twofish  | CAST-128  | DES-X  | IDEA  | RC2  | RC5  | SEED | Skipjack  | TEA  | XTEA  | CAST-256  | RC4 | Camellia  | Anubis  | KHAZAD  | Salsa20 | FCrypt

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

DragonFly BSD kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No
FreeBSD kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No
Linux  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes
Windows NT kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No
macOS XNU Kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?

## Supported compression algorithms

This may be usable on some situations like compression file system.

Kernel name  | Deflate | LZO  | LZJB | zstd

|
|
|
|

zlib | gzip
Linux  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | No  | Yes
NetBSD kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes
Solaris kernel  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?

## Supported message digest algorithms

Kernel name  | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header". | Script error: No such module "Vertical header".

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Linux  | Yes
[258]
[259] | Yes
[260] | No  | Yes
[261] | Yes
[262] | Yes
[263] | Yes
[264] | Partial
[265] | Yes
[266] | Yes
[267] | Yes
[268] | Yes
[269] | Yes
[270] | Yes
[271] | Yes
[272] | Yes
[273] | Yes
[274] | No  | No  | No  | Yes
[275]
Solaris kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?
Windows NT kernel  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | No  | ?  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | No  | Yes  | No  | No  | No  | ?
FreeBSD kernel  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
XNU kernel  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?

## Supported Bluetooth protocols

Kernel name  | ACL | SCO | LMP | HCI | L2CAP | BNEP | RFComm. | SDP | TCP | AVTCP | AVDTP | OBEX | CMTP  | HIDP  | HCRP  | CAPI  | PPP

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

FreeBSD kernel  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Linux  | ?  | Yes[276] | ?  | Yes[276] | Yes[276] | Yes[276] | Yes[276] | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes[276] | Yes[276] | ?  | ?  | ?
macOS XNU Kernel  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | Yes  | ?  | Yes  | Yes  | ?  | ?  | ?  | No  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?  | ?
Kernel name  | ACL  | SCO  | LMP  | HCI  | L2CAP  | BNEP  | RFComm.  | SDP  | TCP  | AVTCP  | AVDTP  | OBEX  | CMTP  | HIDP  | HCRP  | CAPI  | PPP

## Audio support

Kernel name  | Audio system  | in-kernel mixer  | in-kernel filter

|
|
|

Linux  | ALSA, with optional OSS API compatibility[277] | ? | ?
Windows NT kernel  | MME / WDM audio / Kernel Streaming (KS)  | Dropped (KMixer.sys)  | KS Filters
FreeBSD kernel  | OSS API[278] | VCHANs in OSS API[279] | ?
NetBSD kernel  | native (Sun-like) / OSS API[280] | audio_system[281] | ?
Solaris kernel  | Sun audio API / OSS API | Yes  | ?

## Graphics support

Kernel name  | Framebuffer | Display management  | Hardware Compositing (Multiple Planes)  | Display Multiplexer  | Color transform  | GPU scheduler  | GPU memory management  | in-kernel Remote Desktop

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Matrices  | 1D LUT | 3D LUT
Linux  | Linux framebuffer (fbdev) / Direct Rendering Manager (DRM)  | Kernel Mode Setting (KMS)  | Plane abstraction in DRM/KMS[282] | VGA Switcheroo[283] | Linux Color Pipeline API in DRM[284] | DRM sched[285] | DMA-BUF  | No
Windows NT kernel  | Dxgkrnl.sys  | VidPN Manager in Dxgkrnl.sys[286] | Multiplane overlay (MPO) in WDDM[287] | ?  | via MHC profile[288] | ?  | VidSch in Dxgkrnl[289] | VidMm in Dxgkrnl.sys, Dxgmms1.sys, and Dxgmms2.sys[290] | RdpDD.sys / RdpWD.sys

## See also

* Comparison of open-source operating systems
* Comparison of Linux distributions
* Comparison of BSD operating systems
* Comparison of Microsoft Windows versions
* List of operating systems
* Comparison of file systems
* Comparison of operating systems

## Footnotes

1. ↑ "Kernel Definition". http://www.linfo.org/kernel.html. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
2. ↑ "Kernel in Operating System" (in en-US). 2020-07-23. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/kernel-in-operating-system/.
3. ↑ IBM PC Real Time Clock should run in UT
4. ↑ The Amiga hardware lacked support for memory protection, so the strong isolation goals of the microkernel design could not be achieved.
5. ↑ The Amiga hardware lacked support for memory protection, so the strong isolation goals of the microkernel design could not be achieved.
6. ↑ "Chapter 14. Security". FreeBSD Handbook. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/fs-acl.html.
7. ↑ `setfacl(1)` – FreeBSD General Commands Manual
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 www.gnu.org/software/hurd/faq/smp.html
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "The Fiasco microkernel - Status". http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/fiasco/features.html. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
10. ↑ "Linux Kernel FAQ". https://kernel.org/category/faq.html.
11. ↑ A full task-isolation mode for the kernel
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Supports ELF since version 3.2.0 "MinixReleases". Minix Wiki. http://wiki.minix3.org/en/MinixReleases. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 a.out will be phased out in coming releases. van der Kouwe, Erik. "Re: ~Segmentation [Was: Minix3 for sparc"]. Minix3 for sparc. Google Groups. https://groups.google.com/group/minix3/msg/faa0560e441f32a0. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Commit to remove a.out utils from minix; only supports running a.out now. Leca, Antoine. "3fb8cb760c9075fab05682b89b1542d66481ba58". minix.git. http://git.minix3.org/?p=minix.git;a=commit;h=3fb8cb760c9075fab05682b89b1542d66481ba58. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
15. ↑ "Announcing NetBSD 5.0". http://www.netbsd.org/releases/formal-5/NetBSD-5.0.html.
16. ↑ "Event Tracing". 7 January 2021. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/etw/event-tracing-portal?redirectedfrom=MSDN.
17. ↑ "IBM PC Real Time Clock should run in UT". https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/mswish/ut-rtc.html.
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Chapter 10. Kernel Debugging". The FreeBSD Project. June 25, 2025. https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/developers-handbook/kerneldebug/.
19. ↑ Documentation for Kdump - The kexec-based Crash Dumping Solution. kernel.org.
20. ↑ Using kgdb, kdb and the kernel debugger internals. kernel.org.
21. ↑ DRBD: a distributed block device. LWN. April 22, 2009
22. ↑ Distributed Replicated Block Device - DRBD. kernel.org.
23. ↑ CPU hotplug in the Kernel. kernel.org.
24. ↑ Memory Hot(Un)Plug. kernel.org.
25. ↑ Livepatch. kernel.org.
26. ↑ Live Update Orchestrator "LUO" Merged For Linux 6.19. Phoronix. December 8, 2025
27. ↑ crash(8) - OpenBSD manual pages
28. ↑ Core Dump Management on the Solaris OS. Oracle. June 2007
29. ↑ Introduction to Dynamic Hardware Partitioning. Microsoft
30. ↑ Hotpatching on Windows. Microsoft. November 20, 2021
31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 DragonFly's Major Features List. DragonFly Project.
32. ↑ DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages : sys_checkpoint(2)
33. ↑ DragonFly BSD - history. DragonFly Project.
34. ↑ FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE Announcement. FreeBSD Project.
35. ↑ "numa(4)". The FreeBSD Project. May 10, 2015. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=numa&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+11.1-RELEASE&format=html.
36. ↑ RoCE as a performance accelerator. FreeBSD Project. 2018.
37. ↑ "InfiniBand". FreeBSD Wiki. 2019-04-16. https://wiki.freebsd.org/InfiniBand.
38. ↑ ntb. FreeBSD Project.
39. ↑ "pnfs(4)". The FreeBSD Project. August 5, 2018. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pnfs&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+12.2-RELEASE&format=html.
40. ↑ Turbostat Utility Bumps 1024 CPU Core Limit To 8192 Cores After HPE Breaches It With 1152 Cores. Phoronix. April 7, 2025
41. ↑ What is NUMA?. kernel.org.
42. ↑ NTB Drivers. kernel.org.
43. ↑ For sun4v platforms, as of Oracle Solaris b147
44. ↑ "Oracle Solaris 11 Express 2010.11 | What's New" (pdf). Oracle. 2011-01-28. https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/documentation/solaris-express-whatsnew-201011-175308.pdf.
45. ↑ TN3205: Low-latency communication with RDMA over Thunderbolt. Apple
46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 Chapter 8. SMPng Design Document. FreeBSD Project.
47. ↑ _umtx_op. The FreeBSD Project.
48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 FreeBSD Foundation: A Year of Sponsored Development in 2024. FreeBSD Foundation. December 20, 2024
49. ↑ "rtprio(2)". The FreeBSD Project. July 23, 1994. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rtprio&sektion=2&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
50. ↑ "[base Revision 212541"]. 2010-09-13. https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=212541.
51. ↑ "mlock(2)". The FreeBSD Project. July 27, 2010. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mlock&sektion=2&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
52. ↑ "mlockall(2)". The FreeBSD Project. July 27, 2010. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mlockall&sektion=2&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
53. ↑ 9.3-RELEASE - 7. Page Coloring. The FreeBSD Project
54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 The kernel's command-line parameters. kernel.org.
55. ↑ A realtime preemption overview. LWN. August 10, 2005
56. ↑ A proxy-execution baby step. LWN. July 29, 2025
57. ↑ Lightweight PI-futexes. kernel.org.
58. ↑ Block io priorities. kernel.org.
59. ↑ "(Nearly) full tickless operation in 3.10". Lwn.net. https://lwn.net/Articles/549580/. Retrieved 2015-04-09.
60. ↑ Luiz Giacomossi et al. Scheduling Analysis of UAV Flight Control Workloads on PREEMPT_RT Linux Using a Raspberry Pi 5. arxiv.org. 2026
61. ↑ Significant changes from NetBSD 1.5 to 1.6. NetBSD
62. ↑ Chapter 2 Oracle Solaris Kernel and Device Tree. Oracle
63. ↑ proc lwpsinfo_t Structure Oracle
64. ↑ Solaris 10 Operating System - What’s New (Web Arhive) Sun Microsystems
65. ↑ Always Preemptible and Always Interruptible. Microsoft
66. ↑ Priority Inversion. Microsoft
67. ↑ Bright, Peter (October 28, 2012). "Better on the inside: under the hood of Windows 8". Ars Technica. section "Tick tock". https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/better-on-the-inside-under-the-hood-of-windows-8/2/.
68. ↑ os_unfair_lock_lock - Apple Developer Documentation. Apple
69. ↑ FreeBSD 4.0 Release Notes. FreeBSD Project. February 21, 2021
70. ↑ "Multipath TCP". http://caia.swin.edu.au/urp/newtcp/mptcp/tools.html.
71. ↑ "udplite(4)". The FreeBSD Project. October 1, 2014. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=udplite&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+10.1-RELEASE&format=html.
72. ↑ "sctp(4)". The FreeBSD Project. December 15, 2006. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sctp&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
73. ↑ "DCCP Project - Main Page". http://www.freebsd.dccp.org/.
74. ↑ Haggmark, Joacim (2003-10-08). "[dccp FreeBSD implementation"]. https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/dccp/current/msg00508.html.
75. ↑ "DCCP Implementation on BSDs" (pdf). 2009-07-18. https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/64/slides/dccp-9.pdf.
76. ↑ "A Preliminary DCCP implementation on BSD". http://www.jp.nishida.org/dccp/.
77. ↑ Cloudflare Talks Up Multi-Path TCP But Dings Linux's Less Than Ideal Support. Phoronix. January 3, 2025.
78. ↑ Linux 7.1 To Retire UDP-Lite - Allows For Better Performance With Cleansed Code. Phoronix. March 16, 2026.
79. ↑ The second half of the 6.16 merge window. LWN. June 9, 2025
80. ↑ "In-kernel QUIC implementation with Userspace handshake". https://github.com/lxin/quic.
81. ↑ More accurate congestion notification for TCP. LWN. February 18, 2026
82. ↑ IP Sysctl. kernel.org.
83. ↑ Dual-Queue Coupled Active Queue Management (AQM) for Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S) - Appendix A. Example DualQ Coupled PI2 Algorithm. IETF. January 2023
84. ↑ The 6.17 kernel has been released. LWN.net. September 28, 2025
85. ↑ https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37838_01/html/E60991/genql.html How to Create and Configure an IP Tunnel - Administering TCP/IP Networks, IPMP, and IP Tunnels in Oracle Solaris 11.4. Oracle
86. ↑ IPsec Configuration. Microsoft
87. ↑ RFC 2004
88. ↑ RFC 2003
89. ↑ RFC 1933, RFC 2893, and RFC 4213
90. ↑ DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages : ppp(4). DragonFly Projects
91. ↑ DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages : vlan(4). DragonFly Projects
92. ↑ DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages : gre(4). DragonFly Projects
93. ↑ DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages : gif(4). DragonFly Projects
94. ↑ FreeBSD Handbook Chapter 28 PPP and SLIP. The FreeBSD Project
95. ↑ "ng_ppp(4)". The FreeBSD Project. November 13, 2012. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ng_ppp&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+11.1-RELEASE&format=html.
96. ↑ "ng_pppoe(4)". The FreeBSD Project. September 15, 2015. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ng_pppoe&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+11.1-RELEASE&format=html.
97. ↑ FreeBSD Manual Pages - Kernel Interfaces Manual - VLAN(4)
98. ↑ FreeBSD Manual Pages - Kernel Interfaces Manual - GRE(4). The FreeBSD Project
99. ↑ "me(4)". The FreeBSD Project. November 7, 2014. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=me&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+13.4-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html.
100. ↑ FreeBSD Manual Pages - Kernel Interfaces Manual - GIF(4). The FreeBSD Project
101. ↑ FreeBSD 10.2-RELEASE Release Notes. The FreeBSD Project
102. ↑ PPP (point-to-point protocol) support. kernelconfig.io
103. ↑ Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit). kernelconfig.io
104. ↑ PPP over Ethernet. kernelconfig.io
105. ↑ 802.1Q/802.1ad VLAN Support. kernelconfig.io
106. ↑ MultiProtocol Label Switching. kernelconfig.io
107. ↑ L2TPv3 support. kernelconfig.io
108. ↑ IP: GRE tunnels over IP. kernelconfig.io
109. ↑ IP: tunneling. kernelconfig.io
110. ↑ IPv6: IPv6-in-IPv4 tunnel (SIT driver). kernelconfig.io
111. ↑ PPP over L2TP. kernelconfig.io
112. ↑ Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN). kernelconfig.io
113. ↑ ppp(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
114. ↑ pppoe(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
115. ↑ vlan(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
116. ↑ mpls(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
117. ↑ l2tp(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
118. ↑ gre(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
119. ↑ gif(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
120. ↑ ppp(4) - OpenBSD manual pages. OpenBSD Project
121. ↑ pppoe(4) - OpenBSD manual pages. OpenBSD Project
122. ↑ 122.0 122.1 vlan(4) - OpenBSD manual pages. OpenBSD Project
123. ↑ OpenBSD 5.8 Changelog. OpenBSD Project
124. ↑ 124.0 124.1 gre(4) - OpenBSD manual pages. OpenBSD Project
125. ↑ gif(4) - OpenBSD manual pages. OpenBSD Project
126. ↑ CVS: cvs.openbsd.org: src. OpenBSD Project
127. ↑ "Chapter 21 Overview of PPP". Oracle. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19455-01/806-0916/6ja8539cs/index.html.
128. ↑ "sppptun(7M)". Oracle. 2017. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E86824_01/html/E54777/sppptun-7m.html.
129. ↑ David Karp, Tim O'Reilly, Troy Mott. "Windows XP in a Nutshell, Second Edition 2nd Edition". p.605. O'Reilly Media. March 8, 2005
130. ↑ GRE Tunneling in Windows Server 2016. Microsoft. November 2, 2024
131. ↑ David Karp, Tim O'Reilly, Troy Mott. "Windows XP in a Nutshell, Second Edition 2nd Edition". p.604. O'Reilly Media. March 8, 2005
132. ↑ Edward Horley. "Practical IPv6 for Windows Administrators" p.12. December 27, 2013. ISBN 978-1430263708
133. ↑ 133.0 133.1 David Karp, Tim O'Reilly, Troy Mott. "Windows XP in a Nutshell, Second Edition 2nd Edition". p.607. O'Reilly Media. March 8, 2005
134. ↑ "route(4)". The FreeBSD Project. 2004-11-04. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=route&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+11.1-RELEASE&format=html.
135. ↑ "netlink(4)". The FreeBSD Project. 2022-11-30. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=netlink&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+13.2-RELEASE&format=html.
136. ↑ shm_open(2) The FreeBSD Project
137. ↑ "pipe(2)". The FreeBSD Project. 2016-07-20. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pipe&sektion=2&manpath=FreeBSD+11.1-RELEASE&format=html.
138. ↑ "posix_openpt(2)". The FreeBSD Project. 2008-08-20. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=posix_openpt&sektion=2&manpath=FreeBSD+8.0-RELEASE&format=html.
139. ↑ "pty(4)". The FreeBSD Project. 2008-08-20. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pty&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+8.0-RELEASE&format=html.
140. ↑ DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages : pty(4). DragonFly Projects
141. ↑ pty(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
142. ↑ ptm(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project
143. ↑ pty(4) - OpenBSD manual pages. OpenBSD Project
144. ↑ "pipe(2)". Oracle. 2017. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E86824_01/html/E54765/pipe-2.html.
145. ↑ Richard B. Lam. "Shared Memory and Message Queues". "Dr. Dobb's Journal of Software Tools for the Professional Programmer" Volume 20, Number 5. p.30. May, 1995.
146. ↑ AF_UNIX comes to Windows. Microsoft. December 19th, 2017
147. ↑ Linux 6.18 Will Be A Big Improvement For Servers Encountering DDoS Attacks. Phoronix. October 3, 2025
148. ↑ Chapter 6. The TrustedBSD MAC Framework. FreeBSD Project
149. ↑ "priv(9)". The FreeBSD Project. August 30, 2006. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=priv&sektion=9&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
150. ↑ 150.0 150.1 "capsicum(4)". The FreeBSD Project. September 20, 2011. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=capsicum&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
151. ↑ FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE Announcement. FreeBSD Project. December 2, 2025.
152. ↑ "mac(4)". The FreeBSD Project. October 30, 2007. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mac&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
153. ↑ "privileges(5)". Oracle. 2017. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E86824_01/html/E54776/privileges-5.html#scrolltoc.
154. ↑ "Syn attack protection on Windows Vista, Windows 2008, Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 2012 and Windows 2012 R2". June 2010. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/nettracer/2010/06/01/syn-attack-protection-on-windows-vista-windows-2008-windows-7-windows-2008-r2-windows-88-1-windows-2012-and-windows-2012-r2/. "SynAttack protection is enabled by default and cannot be disabled"
155. ↑ "Elementary Information Security, Second Edition, Chapter 4 "Sharing Files"". Section 4.4 "Microsoft Windows ACLs". http://samples.jbpub.com/9781284055931/9781284071276_CH04_133_170.pdf. "The ACLs used in Macintosh OS X and Sun's Solaris operating system are similar to those in Windows to ensure they work well together."
156. ↑ Kernel module signing facility. kernel.org.
157. ↑ IMA and EVM Concepts. IBM.
158. ↑ Inside the Linux Kernel Runtime Guard (LKRG): A New Layer of Kernel Integrity Protection. Linux Journal. January 29, 2026
159. ↑ dm-verity. LWN. September 19, 2011
160. ↑ dm-verity. kernel.org.
161. ↑ Protecting files with fs-verity. LWN. August 30, 2018
162. ↑ fs-verity: read-only file-based authenticity protection. kernel.org.
163. ↑ 163.0 163.1 Defensible Security Architecture. p.53. Swedish Information Processing Society [sv; sv; Dataföreningen i Sverige]. 2019
164. ↑ Kernel-Mode Code Signing Requirements. Microsoft.
165. ↑ Microsoft Under Pressure to Bolster Defenses for BYOVD Attacks. Informa TechTarget. February 14, 2026
166. ↑ iOS Extraction Without a Jailbreak: Full iOS 9 Support, Simplified File System Extraction. ElcomSoft. August 6, 2020
167. ↑ "Xen". FreeBSD Wiki. 2025-03-29. https://wiki.freebsd.org/Xen.
168. ↑ "NetBSD/xen". https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/xen/.
169. ↑ "xen(4)". 2015-12-09. https://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-5.9/xen.4.
170. ↑ "vmm(4)". 2015-12-06. http://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-5.9/vmm.4.
171. ↑ "Windows 10 Device Guard and Credential Guard Demystified" (in en-US). Ash's Blog. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/ash/2016/03/02/windows-10-device-guard-and-credential-guard-demystified/.
172. ↑ "Hypervisor". https://developer.apple.com/documentation/hypervisor.
173. ↑ A rough start for ksmbd. LWN. October 7, 2021
174. ↑ KSMBD - SMB3 Kernel Server. kernel.org.
175. ↑ doc/Documentation/networking/tls.txt kernel.org
176. ↑ "Web security - tempesta-tech/tempesta Wiki". Tempesta Technologies INC. October 31, 2017. https://github.com/tempesta-tech/tempesta/wiki/Web-security. Retrieved May 7, 2018.
177. ↑ Ziehau, Sepherosa (2013-05-22). "socket: Extend SO_REUSEPORT to distribute workload to available sockets". http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/commitdiff/740d1d9f7b7bf9c9c021abb8197718d7a2d441c9.
178. ↑ "nfssvc(2)". The FreeBSD Project. June 9, 1993. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=nfssvc&sektion=2&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html.
179. ↑ "nfsd(8)". The FreeBSD Project. April 23, 2011. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=nfsd&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html.
180. ↑ 180.0 180.1 "nfsv4(4)". The FreeBSD Project. May 15, 2011. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=nfsv4&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
181. ↑ Lundberg, Johannes (2018-06-06). "Load balance sockets with new SO_REUSEPORT_LB option.". https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=334719.
182. ↑ FreeBSD Manual Pages - KTLS(4) Kernel Interfaces Manual
183. ↑ "OpenSolaris Project Weaves CIFS Server Into the Solaris Kernel". http://www.itjungle.com/tug/tug112907-story05.html.
184. ↑ 184.0 184.1 Integrated Load Balancer
185. ↑ AmigaOS up to version 3.9 could use the ELF format for PowerPC executables and libraries through ppc.library, also known as PowerUP. AmigaOS 4, uses ELF as its native executable format.
186. ↑ "a.out: Stop building a.out/osf1 support on alpha and m68k". 2022-03-09. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=19e8b701e258701b52b1e6aea99572518d69a2fb.
187. ↑ "x86: Remove a.out support". 2022-01-13. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=c7bda0dca98cca351a9bc852b3df8b9b99ffd400.
188. ↑ 188.0 188.1 src/trunk: src Remove Darwin, MACH and Mach-O support. The NetBSD Project.
189. ↑ to support SunOS 4.x binaries
190. ↑ including a Linux compatibility option
191. ↑ "[base Revision 241636"]. 2012-10-17. https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=241636.
192. ↑ "[base Revision 247665"]. 2013-03-02. https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=247665.
193. ↑ 193.0 193.1 193.2 experimental and dangerous write support
194. ↑ 194.0 194.1 194.2 194.3 additional driver needed
195. ↑ "NTFS3". https://docs.kernel.org/filesystems/ntfs3.html.
196. ↑ write support currently broken
197. ↑ 197.0 197.1 197.2 197.3 197.4 197.5 197.6 ReactOS Wiki - File Systems
198. ↑ "ReactOS 0.4.7 released!". December 6, 2017. https://reactos.org/project-news/reactos-047-released/.
199. ↑ additional driver needed - see http://www.fs-driver.org/
200. ↑ 200.0 200.1 additional driver needed - see http://www.ext2fsd.com
201. ↑ additional driver needed - see https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs
202. ↑ 202.0 202.1 Third party module required. Mac OS X Kernel Module available here
203. ↑ "mount_nfs(8)". The FreeBSD Project. May 3, 2011. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mount_nfs&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
204. ↑ "smbfs(5)". The FreeBSD Project. April 6, 2022. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=smbfs&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+14.0-RELEASE&format=html.
205. ↑ "Network File System (NFS) overview". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/nfs/nfs-overview.
206. ↑ "devfs(5)". The FreeBSD Project. September 18, 2010. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=devfs&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
207. ↑ "procfs(5)". The FreeBSD Project. 2023-04-10. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=procfs&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+14.0-RELEASE&format=html.
208. ↑ "fusefs(5)". The FreeBSD Project. July 31, 2019. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=fusefs&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+14.0-RELEASE&format=html.
209. ↑ 209.0 209.1 209.2 209.3 209.4 209.5 "FreeBSD supported platforms". https://www.freebsd.org/platforms/.
210. ↑ 210.0 210.1 210.2 210.3 210.4 210.5 210.6 Larabel, Michael (2 April 2018). "Linux Set To Shed Nearly 500k Lines Of Code By Dropping Old CPUs - Phoronix". Phoronix Media. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.17-Gutting-Old-CPUs. ""The architectures on the chopping block for Linux 4.17 are Blackfin, CRIS, FRV, M32R, Metag, MN10300, Score, and Tile""
211. ↑ 211.0 211.1 211.2 211.3 211.4 NetBSD Projects - Support for MMU-less systems
212. ↑ "OpenBSD/Vax". https://www.openbsd.org/vax.html.
213. ↑ "End of Feature Notices for Oracle Solaris 11". Oracle. https://www.oracle.com/solaris/technologies/end-of-feature-notices-solaris11.html#olderreleases. "Support for the 32–bit only x86 hardware has been removed. Support for running 32-bit applications and libraries will continue."
214. ↑ "Features Removed From the Solaris 10 Operating System - Solaris 10 Release Notes". Oracle. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/html/817-0552/eos-5.html#eos-16.
215. ↑ 215.00 215.01 215.02 215.03 215.04 215.05 215.06 215.07 215.08 215.09 215.10 Official FreeRTOS Ports, Amazon Web Services, Inc.
216. ↑ "ESXi Arm Edition". VMware Inc.. https://flings.vmware.com/esxi-arm-edition.
217. ↑ 217.0 217.1 "What's New in VMware vSphere 4.0". http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_40_new_feat.html. "64-bit VMkernel — The VMkernel, a core component of the ESX/ESXi 4.0 hypervisor, is now 64-bit."
218. ↑ "Getting Started with ESXi Installable" (PDF). VMware, Inc.. 2011-09-30. p. 8. http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_esxi_i_vc_setup_guide.pdf. "VMware ESXi 4.0 will only install and run on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs."
219. ↑ Xe – Merge Acceptance Plan. kernel.org.
220. ↑ Rust-Written NOVA Open-Source NVIDIA Driver Being Further Built Out In Linux 6.17. Phoronix. July 19, 2025
221. ↑ drm/amdgpu AMDgpu driver. kernel.org.
222. ↑ Lima. mesa3d.org.
223. ↑ 223.0 223.1 Linux 5.2 DRM Makes Icelake Production-Ready, Adds Lima & Panfrost Drivers. Phoronix. May 9, 2019
224. ↑ Rust-Based Arm GPU Kernel Driver "Tyr" Begins Running GNOME & Basic Games. Phoronix. November 19, 2025
225. ↑ Imagination PowerVR Open-Source GPU Driver To Be Introduced In Linux 6.8. Phoronix. November 23, 2023.
226. ↑ 4.4 Merge window, part 1. LWN. November 11, 2015
227. ↑ 4.5 merge window part 2. LWN. January 20, 2016
228. ↑ DRM User-Space API For Apple Silicon Graphics Posted For Review. Phoronix. March 10, 2025
229. ↑ 229.0 229.1 229.2 229.3 drm(4) - NetBSD Manual Pages. The NetBSD Project.
230. ↑ Intel HD Graphics Drivers and Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Drivers. Intel
231. ↑ Supported Operating Systems for Intel Graphics Products. Intel
232. ↑ List of Drivers for Intel Graphics. Intel
233. ↑ AMD Ends Support For Pre-GCN Graphic Cards – Series HD 7600/8400 and Below Shifted to Legacy Support. Wccftech. November 25, 2015
234. ↑ Intel Atom integrated graphics card for Windows 8 tablet is based on a PowerVR
235. ↑ Raspberry VideoCore 4 support on Windows Microsoft doesn't have plan for OpenGL on UWP also Broadcom doesn't have plan for DirectX
236. ↑ VeriSilicon collaborates with Microsoft to deliver Windows 10 to the Edge. VeriSilicon. March 14, 2023
237. ↑ Intel Graphics Drivers for macOS*. Intel. September 4, 2024
238. ↑ No respite in sight for creative pros trying to get NVIDIA GPUs to work on macOS Mojave. NotebookCheck.net News. December 17, 2018
239. ↑ Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition Drivers and Downloads - Latest Version AMD
240. ↑ Radeon 7000 Mac Edition Drivers and Downloads - Latest Version AMD
241. ↑ Radeon 9000 PRO Mac Edition Drivers and Downloads - Latest Version AMD
242. ↑ Linux emulation in FreeBSD - 2 A look inside...
243. ↑ ndis(4): remove as previous announced. FreeBSD Project. January 25, 2021
244. ↑ Remove SVR4 (System V Release 4) binary compatibility support. FreeBSD Project. February 28, 2017
245. ↑ 245.0 245.1 245.2 245.3 245.4 245.5 245.6 NetBSD Binary Emulation
246. ↑ compat_pecoff. The NetBSD Project.
247. ↑ Remove COMPAT_PECOFF from all - I suspect is doesn't build anymore,. The NetBSD Project. November 10, 2007
248. ↑ src/trunk: src Remove compat_osf1, discussed on tech-kern@.. The NetBSD Project.
249. ↑ src/trunk: src Retire compat_ibcs2, as discussed on tech-kern@. FreeBSD did.... The NetBSD Project.
250. ↑ src/trunk: src Remove IRIX emulation. The NetBSD Project.
251. ↑ src/trunk: src Retire NDIS. It appears that it has never worked, after 13 y.... The NetBSD Project.
252. ↑ "Summer of Code:NDIS on NetBSD". https://netbsd-soc.sourceforge.net/projects/ndis/.
253. ↑ src/trunk: src Remove compat_svr4 and compat_svr4_32, as discussed on tech-.... The NetBSD Project.
254. ↑ "OpenBSD 6.0 Changelog". https://www.openbsd.org/plus60.html.
255. ↑ 255.0 255.1 "OpenBSD 5.0 Changelog". https://www.openbsd.org/plus50.html.
256. ↑ "OpenBSD 4.2 Changelog". https://www.openbsd.org/plus42.html.
257. ↑ 257.0 257.1 257.2 257.3 "OpenBSD 4.8 Changelog". https://www.openbsd.org/plus48.html.
258. ↑ "Crc32_generic.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/crc32_generic.c.
259. ↑ "Crc32.c « lib - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/lib/crc32.c.
260. ↑ "Crc32c_generic.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/crc32c_generic.c.
261. ↑ "Md4.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/md4.c.
262. ↑ "Md5.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/md5.c.
263. ↑ "Sha1_generic.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/sha1_generic.c.
264. ↑ "Sha256_generic.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/sha256_generic.c.
265. ↑ "Sha3_generic.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/sha3_generic.c.
266. ↑ "Michael_mic.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/michael_mic.c.
267. ↑ "Poly1305_generic.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/poly1305_generic.c.
268. ↑ https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/rmd128.c
269. ↑ "Rmd160.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/rmd160.c.
270. ↑ https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/rmd256.c
271. ↑ https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/rmd320.c
272. ↑ https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/tgr192.c
273. ↑ "Wp512.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/wp512.c.
274. ↑ "Hmac.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/hmac.c.
275. ↑ "Vmac.c « crypto - kernel/Git/Torvalds/Linux.git - Linux kernel source tree". https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/crypto/vmac.c.
276. ↑ 276.0 276.1 276.2 276.3 276.4 276.5 276.6 Bluetooth subsystem support. kernelconfig.io.
277. ↑ "Notes on Kernel OSS-Emulation" (plain text). 2004-01-22. https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sound/designs/oss-emulation.rst.
278. ↑ "sound(4)". The FreeBSD Project. July 31, 2011. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sound&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html.
279. ↑ "mixer(8)". The FreeBSD Project. March 14, 2008. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mixer&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+9.0-RELEASE&format=html. "/dev/mixer the default mixer device"
280. ↑ in OSS APIhe_future Improving libossaudio, and the future of OSS in NetBSD. NetBSD Project. April 27, 2020
281. ↑ audio_system(9) - NetBSD Manual Pages. NetBSD Project
282. ↑ Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) - Plane Abstraction. kernel.org.
283. ↑ NVIDIA Is Helping To Improve Linux's Dynamic Display Mux Support For Laptops. Phoronix. 14 October 2024.
284. ↑ Linux Color Pipeline API. kernel.org.
285. ↑ Deadline Scheduling Policy Being Experimented With For Linux Graphics Drivers. Phoronix. December 30, 2024.
286. ↑ Introduction to Video Present Networks. Microsoft. December 15, 2021.
287. ↑ Multiplane overlay support. Microsoft.
288. ↑ Windows hardware display color calibration pipeline - New GPU color transform pipeline. Microsoft.
289. ↑ WDDM Architecture. Microsoft. October 2, 2024.
290. ↑ Video Memory Management and GPU Scheduling. Microsoft. July 3, 2024.

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison of operating system kernels. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Software:Comparison_of_operating_system_kernels&oldid=4560559"
*[ETW]: Event Tracing for Windows
*[GIM]: Global Integrated memory
*[NPFS]: named pipe filesystem
*[ALPC]: Advanced Local Procedure Call
*[BYOVD]: Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver
*[IMA]: Linux Integrity Measurement Architecture
*[EVM]: Extended Verification Module
*[ACL]: Asynchronous connection-oriented
*[SCO]: Synchronous connection-oriented
*[LMP]: Link management protocol
*[HCI]: Host/controller interface
*[L2CAP]: Logical link control and adaptation protocol
*[BNEP]: Bluetooth network encapsulation protocol
*[RFComm.]: Radio frequency communication
*[SDP]: Service discovery protocol
*[TCP]: Telephony control protocol
*[AVTCP]: Audio/visual control transport protocol
*[AVDTP]: Audio/visual data transport protocol
*[OBEX]: Object exchange
*[WDDM]: Windows Display Driver Model
*[MHC]: Microsoft Hardware Calibration