English

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Etymology

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From uni- (single-) +‎ kernel.

Noun

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unikernel (plural unikernels)

  1. (operating systems) A specialised, fixed-purpose machine image which can run directly on hardware or a hypervisor without an operating system such as Linux.
    Coordinate term: microkernel
    • 2016, Bartok, David , Walt, Estee van der, Lindemann, Jan , Eschrig, Johannes , Plauth, Max , Proceedings of the Third HPI Cloud Symposium "Operating the Cloud" 2015, Universitätsverlag Potsdam (→ISBN), page 37:
      The general idea behind unikernel systems is not entirely new, as it builds up on top of the concept of library operating systems such as exokernel or Nemesis.
    • 2017, Kai Hwang, Cloud Computing for Machine Learning and Cognitive Applications: A Machine Learning Approach, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 143:
      In the unikernel approach, a developer selects a minimal set of libraries from a modular stack which correspond to the OS constructs required for their application to run.

Further reading

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