A
monolithic kernel is an operating system architecture where the entire operating system is working in
kernel space and is alone in
supervisor mode. The monolithic model differs from other operating system architectures (such as the
microkernel architecture) in that it alone defines a high-level virtual interface over computer hardware. A set of primitives or
system calls implement all operating system services such as
process management,
concurrency, and
memory management. Device drivers can be added to the kernel as
modules.