Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 4, 2026

Comparison of operating system kernels

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

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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.

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
Programming
language
 Used in Creator Executable
format
(also see
section
below) 		Type Integrated firewall SMP support Multiple architecture
support
(also see
section below). 		Virtualization Security Profiling/Debugging Soft real-time support Hard real-time support Can keep RTC in UT3
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,67 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 Partial8 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 Partial8 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/Fiasco9 L4/Fiasco9 L4/Fiasco9 ? ?
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 Torvalds10 ELF, others monolithic 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 isolation11 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.out1314 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 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 Unofficial17
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
Memory hotplug
 Kernel live patching Kernel live update
DragonFly BSD kernel Yes ? Kernel panic ? ddb ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
FreeBSD kernel kern.msgbuf in sysctl ? Kernel panic Yes18a ddb18 ? GEOM, ZFS (HAST in user-space) No ? ? ?
Linux kernel kmsg Linux kernel oops Kernel panic / drm_panic kdump19b KDB / KGDB20 EDAC (formerly Bluesmoke) md, LVM DRBD2122 Yes23 Yes24 livepatch25 Kexec HandOver / Live Update Orchestrator26
NetBSD kernel Yes ? Kernel panic ? DDB / KGDB ? RAIDframe, ZFS ? ? ? ? ?
OpenBSD kernel Yes ? Kernel panic Yes27 ddb ? softraid ? ? ? ? ?
Solaris kernel Yes ? Yes System core dump28c 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 Partitioning29 Hotpatch30 ?
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 PCI Express
Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB) support 		CXL 3.1
inter-host communication with GIM support
DragonFly BSD kernel 25631 Partial31 ? ? ? ? sys_checkpoint32 planned33 HAMMER2
FreeBSD kernel 102434 Yes35 Yes36 Yes37 Yes38 ? ? No pNFS39
Linux kernel 819240 Yes41 Yes Yes Yes42 No Checkpoint/Restart (openMosix) pNFS / Ceph / OCFS2 / GFS2
Solaris kernel 51243 Yes Yes Yes44 ? ? No No PxFS
Windows NT kernel ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? No Cluster Shared Volumes

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
kernel threads interrupt handlers lock sections kernel space userland
DragonFly BSD kernel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? mlock/mlockall system call
FreeBSD kernel FULL_PREEMPTION (only for debugging)45 No45 ? UMUTEX_PRIO_INHERIT on _umtx_op46 SCHED_FIFO / SCHED_RR on ULE scheduler47 rtprio system call4748 ? ? ? Yes, since FreeBSD 9.049 mlock/mlockall system call5051
Linux kernel preempt=full52 threadirqs PREEMPT_RT53 RT-mutex / (mutex with Proxy Execution54) PI-futexes55 SCHED_FIFO / SCHED_RR on CFS/EEVDF rtprio system call IOPRIO_CLASS_RT56 isolcpus52 irqaffinity nohz_full57 mlock/mlockall system call
NetBSD kernel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? mlock/mlockall system call
OpenBSD kernel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? mlock/mlockall system call
Solaris kernel Yes58 ? ? ? Yes59 ? ? ? ? ? ? mlock/mlockall system call
Windows NT kernel Yes60 ? ? ? AutoBoost61 REALTIME_PRIORITY_CLASS ? ? ? ? Windows 8 and later62 VirtualLock
XNU ? ? ? ? os_unfair_lock63 ? ? ? ? ? ? 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 Yes64 Yes Unofficial patch exists65 Yes Yes66 Yes67 Unofficial patches exist68697071 ? ? ? ?
Linux kernel Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial72 Yes dropped in 7.173 Yes dropped in 6.1674 Unofficial75 Yes7677 (Linux kernel tree with L4S patches) DualPI2 qdisc7879
NetBSD kernel Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes ? Yes Yes ? ? ? ?
OpenBSD kernel Yes Yes ? Yes ? Yes No No No ? ? ? ?
Solaris kernel Yes Yes Yes80 Yes ? Yes No Yes No ? ? ? ?
Windows NT kernel Yes Yes Yes81 Yes ? Yes ? No ? ? ? ? ?
XNU Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes No No No ? ? ? ?
Zircon ? ? ? Yes ? Yes ? Yes Yes ? ? ? ?
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 Tunneling82 IP in IP (IPIP)83 6in4 (SIT)84 PPTP L2TP VXLAN
DragonFly BSD kernel Yes85 Yes ? Yes86 ? ? ? ? ? Yes87 gif88 ? ? ?
FreeBSD kernel Legacy kernel PPP89a and netgraph-based kernel PPP90 Yes Yes91 Yes92 ? ? ? ? ? Yes93 Yes94 gif95 ? ? Yes96
Linux kernel Yes97 Yes98 Yes99 Yes100 Yes101 ? Yes102 ? Yes103 No Yes104 Yes105 Nob Yes106 Yes107
NetBSD kernel Yes108 Yes Yes109 Yes110 ? Yes111 ? l2tp interface112 ? Yes113 gif114 ? ? ?
OpenBSD kernel Yes115 Yes Yes116 Yes117 svlan117 ? mpw118 ? egre119 Yes119 No ? gif120 ? ? Yes121
Solaris kernel Yes122 Yes Yes123 Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? No Yes ? Nob Nob Yes
Windows NT kernel ? Yes raspppoe.sys124 ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes125 No ipinip.sys126 No127 raspptp.sys128 rasl2tp.sys128 Yes
XNU Yes Yes ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? No gif ? ? ?
Zircon ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
  1. Dropped since FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE
  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 sockets129130 SHM_ANON131 Yes Bidirectional132 Yes AF_UNIX posix_openpt,133 and UNIX 98 and BSD-style compatibility module134 ?
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 BSD135 ?
NetBSD kernel Yes ? AF_ROUTE sockets ? Yes Unidirectional Yes AF_UNIX UNIX 98, BSD and OpenBSD (ptm)136137 ?
OpenBSD kernel Yes ? AF_ROUTE sockets ? Yes Bidirectional Yes AF_UNIX BSD and OpenBSD (ptm)138 ?
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 Bidirectional139 Yes AF_UNIX UNIX 98 and BSD Doors
Windows NT kernel ? MailSlot140 ? ? Yes Unidirectional NPFS AF_UNIX141 No ALPC

In-kernel security

Kernel
 File access control Disable memory execution support
Kernel ASLR
 Mandatory access control Capability-based security
In-kernel
key management
 Audit API Sandbox SYN flood protection UDP flood protection Ping flood protection Smurf attack protection Network Behavior Analysis
Linux
 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 queues142 ICMP rate limiting reverse path filtering Netfilter
FreeBSD kernel
 Traditional Unix permissions, POSIX and NFSv4 ACL Yes Yes TrustedBSD MAC143 In-kernel privilege division, and Capsicum144145 ? OpenBSM / inotify146 Capsicum, MAC framework145147 SYN cookies ? ICMP rate limiting ? ?
Solaris kernel
 Traditional Unix permissions, POSIX ACL, NFSv4 ACL Default ? Solaris Trusted Extensions Process privileges148 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Windows NT kernel
 Access control list DEP Yes Mandatory Integrity Control Process security tokens, and AppContainers No Yes Windows Event Log Yes149 Yes ? ? ?
XNU
 Traditional Unix permissions, NT/NFSv4 ACL150 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 verification151 IMA / EVM152 ? (Linux Kernel Runtime Guard153) ? dm-verity154155 fs-verity156157
FreeBSD kernel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
NetBSD kernel ? ? ? ? ? veriexec158 ? ?
Solaris kernel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Windows NT kernel Yes Kernel-Mode Code Signing159 ? Vulnerable Driver Blocklist160 PatchGuarda, HyperGuardb AppLocker158 ? Windows Resource Protection
XNU ? kext signing ? ? Kernel Patch Protection161 ? ? ?
  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, Xen162 bhyve ? ? ? No
NetBSD kernel chroot (sysjail (discontinued)) No Virtio, Xen163 No ? Rump kernel ? No
OpenBSD kernel chroot No No Xen (guest only)164 Yes165 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 Guard166
XNU chroot ? ? ? Yes167 ? ? ? 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 ksmbd168169 ? IP Virtual Server (KTCPVS) (patch available) SOL_TLS170 (Tempesta FW)171 (kmemcached)
DragonFly BSD kernel No No Up to NFS v3 Yes ? Yes172 ? No No ? ?
FreeBSD kernel No No Yes173174175 No No Yes176 No No ktls177 ? ?
Solaris kernel ? ? Yes Yes178 ? Yes179 Yes179 ? 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
Misc
(wrapper based,
like interpreters)
 PE SOM
(PA-RISC,
HP-UX) 		NLM PEF DOS COM MZ LE LX NE
Amiga Exec No No Yes180 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 Dropped181182 Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes ? No ? ? ? ? ?
MINIX 3 Some1314 No Yes12 No No No No No No No No No ? ? ? ? ?
NetBSD kernel Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? Dropped183 ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
OpenBSD kernel ? ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
ReactOS kernel ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Solaris kernel Yes184 No Yes185 No No No No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Windows NT kernel No No Yes with WSL No No No No No Yes No No No Noa Noa ? ? Noa
XNU No No No No No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
  1. 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-RELEASE186187 No No No Yes Yes read only Yes read only No No No No ? No
Linux kernel Yes
188 		Yes Unofficial
189 		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 5.15190 Yes Yes
188
191 		write support? Yes Yes
188 		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
192 		Yes
192 		Yes
192 		No Yes
192 		No No No No Yes
192 		No No No No No Read only No No No Yes
192 		No No No No No Yes193192 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
189 		? ? ? ? Unofficial
194 		Unofficial
195 		Unofficial
195 		No Yes ? Unofficial
189 		Unofficial
189 		No Yes ? ? ? ? No Yes ? ? ? Yes ? ? No No No Unofficial
196 		No No Yes Yes
XNU No No Yes No No No No Unofficial
197 		Unofficial
197 		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 Yes175198 Yes Yes199 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 NFSv3200 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 devfs201 Obsoleted202 FUSE203
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

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 only204 No Yes ? Yes Projected to end in 15.x204 Yes No 10.4 and below only204 13.5 and below only204 No Projected to end in 15.x204 Yes No No No No No No No No No No 12.x and below only204 ? 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 only205 No 2.6 and below only Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 4.16 and below only205 Yes Yes Yes 4.16 and below only205 4.16 and below only205 4.16 and below only205 4.12 and below only No No Yes Yes No 4.16 and below only205 4.16 and below only205 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 No206 Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes No206 Yes No No No ? ? ? ? ? Yes No206 Yes Yes No206 Yes No206 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
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 5.8207 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)208 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 10209 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 ? ? ? ? Yes210 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes210 ? ? No Yes210 ? ? Yes210 Yes210 ? Yes210 ? ? ? ? ? Yes210 Yes210 ? ? ? ? ? Yes210 ? ? ? Yes210 ? ? ? ?
VMkernel No No No No No Yes211 Dropped since VMware ESXi 4.0212213 Yes212 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 No210 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
GMAa GTb Xec GeForce/Quadro/Tesla Xenos/TeraScale GCN/RDNA/CDNA Utgard Midgard/Bifrost Valhall Adreno PowerVR VideoCore4 Vivanted AGX
Linux kernel i915 driver xe driver214 nouveau (C), Nova (Rust)215 radeon driver amdgpu driver216 Lima217218 Panfrost218 Panthor (C), Tyr (Rust)219 msm driver imagination driver220 vc4 driver221 etnaviv222 (Asahi driver)223
NetBSD i915drmkms drivere224 ? nouveau drivere224 radeon drivere224 amdgpu drivere224 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Windows NT kernel Droppedf Yes227 Yes Droppedg Yes No Windows Phone 8.x, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows on ARM Yes229 No230 Windows IoT Enterprise on Arm231 No
XNU Yes (macOS)232 Noh Noi ? 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. ported from Linux
  6. Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Drivers were supported up to Windows 8.1.225226
  7. AMD drivers for pre-GCN GPUs were supported up to Windows 10.228
  8. Quadro & GeForce macOS Driver was supported up to macOS High Sierra (10.13).233
  9. Radeon Mac Edition drivers were supported up to Mac OS X 10.4.234235236

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 Yes237 No No Yes No No No No No No No No No Dropped238 Dropped239
Linux kernel Yes No (Longene) No No No No No No No No No No (NDISwrapper) No
NetBSD kernel Yes240 Dropped183 Dropped241242 Yes240 Yes Yes240 Dropped243 Yes240 Yes240 Yes240 Dropped244 Dropped245 Yes240 Dropped246247 Dropped248
OpenBSD kernel Dropped since OpenBSD 6.0249 No No Dropped since OpenBSD 5.0250 Dropped since OpenBSD 4.2251 No No No Dropped since OpenBSD 4.8252 Dropped since OpenBSD 4.8252 Dropped since OpenBSD 4.8252 No Dropped since OpenBSD 4.8252 No Dropped since OpenBSD 5.0250
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
CRC-32 (IEEE)
Michael MIC
LASH
Linux Yes
253
254 		Yes
255 		No Yes
256 		Yes
257 		Yes
258 		Yes
259 		Partial
260 		Yes
261 		Yes
262 		Yes
263 		Yes
264 		Yes
265 		Yes
266 		Yes
267 		Yes
268 		Yes
269 		No No No Yes
270
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 ? Yes271 ? Yes271 Yes271 Yes271 Yes271 ? ? ? ? ? Yes271 Yes271 ? ? ?
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 compatibility272 ? ?
Windows NT kernel MME / WDM audio / Kernel Streaming (KS) Dropped (KMixer.sys) KS Filters
FreeBSD kernel OSS API273 VCHANs in OSS API274 ?
NetBSD kernel native (Sun-like) / OSS API275 audio_system276 ?
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/KMS277 VGA Switcheroo278 Linux Color Pipeline API in DRM279 DRM sched280 DMA-BUF No
Windows NT kernel Dxgkrnl.sys VidPN Manager in Dxgkrnl.sys281 Multiplane overlay (MPO) in WDDM282 ? via MHC profile283 ? VidSch in Dxgkrnl284 VidMm in Dxgkrnl.sys, Dxgmms1.sys, and Dxgmms2.sys285 RdpDD.sys / RdpWD.sys
See also

See also

Footnotes

Footnotes

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  101. MultiProtocol Label Switching. kernelconfig.io
  102. L2TPv3 support. kernelconfig.io
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  104. IP: tunneling. kernelconfig.io
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  106. PPP over L2TP. kernelconfig.io
  107. Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN). kernelconfig.io
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  120. gif(4) - OpenBSD manual pages. OpenBSD Project
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  222. 4.5 merge window part 2. LWN. January 20, 2016
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  226. Supported Operating Systems for Intel Graphics Products. Intel
  227. List of Drivers for Intel Graphics. Intel
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  229. Intel Atom integrated graphics card for Windows 8 tablet is based on a PowerVR
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  235. Radeon 7000 Mac Edition Drivers and Downloads - Latest Version AMD
  236. Radeon 9000 PRO Mac Edition Drivers and Downloads - Latest Version AMD
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  239. Remove SVR4 (System V Release 4) binary compatibility support. FreeBSD Project. February 28, 2017
  240. NetBSD Binary Emulation
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  245. src/trunk: src Remove IRIX emulation. The NetBSD Project.
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