Kernel

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The kernal of a computer is essentially the heart, nucleus or center of the computer. It is the central component of many computer operating systems and its focus is maintaining the computer's resources or in other words, managing the relationship between the hardware and the software.

The kernal is the fundamental component of an operating system and provides the lowest-level abstraction layer for the resources, especially input/output devices and memory. It exists as the bedrock of an operating system because of its being the natural consequence of the design of a computer system. That is, as a series of abstraction layers, each depending on the functions of those layers beneath it.