what are physical and kernel memories?

Answer 1

Deirdre is correct concerning the physical memory.

the kernel memory is a restricted area in the physical memory starting at mem addr 0. it contains all important data for the operating system (whereby the first few Kb's are reserved for processor specific data).

here is a very short description of what it is
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/k/kernel.html

Answer 2

Physical Memory:::A physical memory is a term used to describe the total amount of memory installed in the computer. For example, if the computer has two 64MB memory modules installed, it has a total of 128MB of physical memory.


kernel Memory:The memory used by the operating system, which is protected and cannot be accessed by regular applications. Virtual memory can be used to page some of the kernel in memory to disk. However, there is always a certain part of the kernel that must reside in physical memory at all times and cannot be swapped out

Answer 3

Physical memory is the amount of memory you have installed on the mother board in SIMM's.

The Kernel is the machine code of the basic operating system you have. Usually Kernel is a word used for Unix or Linux based operating systems. It's the fundamental operating system, not including any drivers loaded at boot time.

What you probably meant when you said (I'm making an assumption here) is Virtual memory, which is a file on the hard drive that is used to extend the physical memory. Virtual memory is much slower than physical memory, but it allows you to run programs larger than your physical memory alone would allow.