>So, technically, BeOS is not a microkernel per this definition. However, >I'm not convinced yet that the term microkernel was this well defined from >the start. From what I can tell, it would appear that originally a >microkernel was "minimalized" kernel, but little distinction was made >concerning where it lived This is not true. The definition of a microkernel exists at least since Tanenbaum's Minix (and that was before Linux was even born). By this definition only what follows is part of a microkernel: - dispatching - message passing - some memory management, paging, protection - low level I/O