A driver is a kind of program that extends the kernel's functionality in some way. Different drivers in the kernel provide support for hardware devices, file systems, binary executable formats, network protocols etc.
A large part of the kernel binary, that resides as as a disk file in /boot/vmlinuz or /boot/vmlinux directory and in memory at run-time, consists of different drivers.
Generally drivers are of two types:
| Internal Drivers | When a system is in running state, internal drivers are basically a part of the kernel binary and a part of kernel memory. |
|---|---|
| External Drivers | External drivers are not part of the kernel binary, but
these are loadable modules which are loaded at run time
according to the requirements and are unloaded if these are not
required any more. These modules reside under /lib/modules.
|
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