# Non-Linux Kernels

## Yarui

A comment I read somewhere else got me wondering, if I want to experiment with a non-Linux GNU Kernel, would that be doable without installing a new OS?  Could a distro I have already installed be made to work with some other kernel or would there have to be a new distro made to use it properly?  It would be very cool if I could choose in my grub whether I wanted to run my OS with a Linux kernel or a non-Linux kernel the same way you can choose which version of the linux kernel to boot to if you have multiple kernels installed.

Another thing I am a little curious about is if different kernels would really feel like they had a major effect on how I use my OS, or if it would just be doing things differently behind the scenes.  What would be the benefits of messing with other kernels?  I don't really have any specific kernel in mind or any reason to want to use a different one, I just know there are others out there and I'm curious about how they are different.

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## eccerr0r

Biggest problem is whether or not the kernel has an ABI interface that's compatible with Linux starting from init as well as allocating ptys, graphics card interface, etc.  And kernel modules loaded in userland most surely won't work.  /proc semantics are different from OS to OS too.

But if it does (I believe the only working example is possibly using a 64-bit Linux kernel for a 32-bit Linux userland), not much reason why it wouldn't run.  You'd basically only see difference in scheduling and driver quality - things specific to the kernel.  The user interface is all userland, so it'd look like the same.

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