Windows (and most other operating systems) have a “user land” and a “kernel space”.
“user land” is where all your applications run. A “user land” application can only see other applications and files owned by the same user. Eventually, a user land app will want to do “something”. This can be something like read a file from disk, make a network connection, draw a picture on the screen. To accomplish this, the user space app need to “talk” to the kernel.
If user space apps were instruments being played in an orchestra, the kernel would be the conductor. The kernel is responsible for making sure the user land apps can only see their respective users files/apps/etc.
The kernel “can see and do everything”, it reports to no one. It has complete access to all the applications and every file. Your device drivers for your printer, video card, ect all run in “kernel space”.
Basically, the OPs link: they’ve ported Doom to run effectively like a device driver. This means that if doom crashes, your PC will blue screen.
This has no practical purpose, other than saying “yeah, we did it” :)
It means that all the code is running in privileged kernel mode instead of user mode. Kernel mode is usually reserved for the operating system and device drivers only. If code running in kernel mode has an unhandled exception or error, the entire system will crash. This creates the BSOD or “blue screen of death” on Windows.
User mode is less privileged and where all your typical applications run. If something crashes in user mode, it only crashes that process, not the whole system.
It’s a crazy thing that they did. Very impressive technically, but not really useful.
I’m ignorant, but what does this means? I mean, what’s the difference running it “in the kernel” and running it normally on windows?
Windows (and most other operating systems) have a “user land” and a “kernel space”.
“user land” is where all your applications run. A “user land” application can only see other applications and files owned by the same user. Eventually, a user land app will want to do “something”. This can be something like read a file from disk, make a network connection, draw a picture on the screen. To accomplish this, the user space app need to “talk” to the kernel.
If user space apps were instruments being played in an orchestra, the kernel would be the conductor. The kernel is responsible for making sure the user land apps can only see their respective users files/apps/etc.
The kernel “can see and do everything”, it reports to no one. It has complete access to all the applications and every file. Your device drivers for your printer, video card, ect all run in “kernel space”.
Basically, the OPs link: they’ve ported Doom to run effectively like a device driver. This means that if doom crashes, your PC will blue screen.
This has no practical purpose, other than saying “yeah, we did it” :)
Thank you both for your reply! Now I got it!
It means that all the code is running in privileged kernel mode instead of user mode. Kernel mode is usually reserved for the operating system and device drivers only. If code running in kernel mode has an unhandled exception or error, the entire system will crash. This creates the BSOD or “blue screen of death” on Windows.
User mode is less privileged and where all your typical applications run. If something crashes in user mode, it only crashes that process, not the whole system.
It’s a crazy thing that they did. Very impressive technically, but not really useful.
Those are my favourite kinds of shitposts. I find them legitimately beautiful