◄ Wiki / OS
bare metal
Software running directly on the hardware with no operating system underneath.
Running bare metal means your code is the only thing on the machine — there is no OS to provide drivers, memory management, or scheduling, so the program must handle the hardware itself. This is how firmware, bootloaders, and kernels operate. It gives total control at the cost of doing everything yourself.
See also
- BIOSThe low-level firmware that starts a machine and hands control to the operating system.
- kernelThe core program of an operating system that controls memory, running programs, and hardware.
- .ko moduleA driver file the Linux kernel can load and unload while running, without rebooting.