changeset 108:185c8f72730e

Bite the bullet and yank the old "attempt to write a kernel book" from the index page. Focus instead on the stuff that's actually there, so people can see it.
author Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
date Sat, 19 Feb 2011 21:28:05 -0600
parents dde34eaf03ed
children cfaf44286c4a
files index-old.html index.html
diffstat 2 files changed, 1508 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) [+]
line wrap: on
line diff
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/index-old.html	Sat Feb 19 21:28:05 2011 -0600
@@ -0,0 +1,1423 @@
+<html>
+<title>Linux Kernel Documentation</title>
+<body>
+
+<h2>Linux Kernel Documentation Index</h2>
+
+<p>This page collects and organizes documentation about the Linux kernel, taken
+from many different sources.  What is the kernel, how do you build it, how do
+you use it, how do you change it...</p>
+
+<p>This is a work in progress, and probably always will be.  Please let us know
+on the
+<a href=http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#linux-doc>linux-doc</a> mailing
+list (on vger.kernel.org) about any documentation you'd like added to this
+index, and feel free to ask about any topics that aren't covered here yet.
+This index is maintained by Rob Landley &lt;rob@landley.net&gt;, and tracked in
+<a href=http://landley.net/hg/kdocs>this mercurial repostiory</a>.  The
+cannonical location for the page is <a href=http://kernel.org/doc>here</a>.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+  <h2><a href="#Sources_of_documentation" name="1">1 Sources of documentation</a></h2>
+<ul>
+    <li><a href="#From_the_kernel" name="1.1">1.1 From the kernel</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Out_on_the_web" name="1.2">1.2 Out on the web</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Standards" name="1.3">1.3 Standards</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Translations" name="1.4">1.4 Translations</a></li>
+  </ul>
+  <h2><a href="#Building_from_source" name="2">2 Building from source</a></h2>
+<ul>
+    <li><a href="#User_interface" name="2.1">2.1 User interface</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Get_and_extract_the_source" name="2.1.1">2.1.1 Get and extract the source</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Configuring" name="2.1.2">2.1.2 Configuring</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#Using_an_existing_configuration" name="2.1.2.1">2.1.2.1 Using an existing configuration</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#Creating_a_custom_kernel_configuration" name="2.1.2.2">2.1.2.2 Creating a custom kernel configuration</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#building" name="2.1.3">2.1.3 building</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#Building_out_of_tree" name="2.1.3.1">2.1.3.1 Building out of tree</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#Installing" name="2.1.4">2.1.4 Installing</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#running" name="2.1.5">2.1.5 running</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#debugging" name="2.1.6">2.1.6 debugging</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#QEMU" name="2.1.6.1">2.1.6.1 QEMU</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#cross_compiling" name="2.1.7">2.1.7 cross compiling</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#Cross_compiling_vs_native_compiling" name="2.1.7.1">2.1.7.1 Cross compiling vs native compiling</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#User_Mode_Linux" name="2.1.7.2">2.1.7.2 User Mode Linux</a></li>
+      </ul>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#Infrastructure" name="2.2">2.2 Infrastructure</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#kconfig" name="2.2.1">2.2.1 kconfig</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#kbuild" name="2.2.2">2.2.2 kbuild</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#build_and_link_(tmppiggy)" name="2.2.3">2.2.3 build and link (tmppiggy)</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </ul>
+  <h2><a href="#Installing_and_using_the_kernel" name="3">3 Installing and using the kernel</a></h2>
+<ul>
+    <li><a href="#Installing" name="3.1">3.1 Installing</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Kernel_image" name="3.1.1">3.1.1 Kernel image</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Bootloader" name="3.1.2">3.1.2 Bootloader</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#A_working_Linux_root_filesystem" name="3.2">3.2 A working Linux root filesystem</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Finding_and_mounting__" name="3.2.1">3.2.1 Finding and mounting /</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#initramfs,_switch_root_vs_pivot_root,__dev_console" name="3.2.1.1">3.2.1.1 initramfs, switch_root vs pivot_root, /dev/console</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#Running_programs" name="3.2.2">3.2.2 Running programs</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#init_program_and_PID_1" name="3.2.2.1">3.2.2.1 init program and PID 1</a></li>
+      <ul>
+          <li><a href="#What_does_daemonizing_really_mean" name="3.2.2.1.1">3.2.2.1.1 What does daemonizing really mean?</a></li>
+        </ul>
+        <li><a href="#Executable_formats" name="3.2.2.2">3.2.2.2 Executable formats</a></li>
+      <ul>
+          <li><a href="#Shell_scripts" name="3.2.2.2.1">3.2.2.2.1 Shell scripts</a></li>
+          <li><a href="#ELF" name="3.2.2.2.2">3.2.2.2.2 ELF</a></li>
+        <ul>
+            <li><a href="#Shared_libraries" name="3.2.2.2.2.1">3.2.2.2.2.1 Shared libraries</a></li>
+          </ul>
+        </ul>
+        <li><a href="#C_library" name="3.2.2.3">3.2.2.3 C library</a></li>
+      <ul>
+          <li><a href="#Exporting_kernel_headers" name="3.2.2.3.1">3.2.2.3.1 Exporting kernel headers</a></li>
+        </ul>
+        <li><a href="#Dynamic_loader" name="3.2.2.4">3.2.2.4 Dynamic loader</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#FHS_directories" name="3.2.3">3.2.3 FHS directories</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </ul>
+  <h2><a href="#Reading_the_source_code" name="4">4 Reading the source code</a></h2>
+<ul>
+    <li><a href="#Source_code_layout" name="4.1">4.1 Source code layout</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Following_the_boot_process" name="4.1.1">4.1.1 Following the boot process</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Major_subsystems" name="4.1.2">4.1.2 Major subsystems</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Architectures" name="4.1.3">4.1.3 Architectures</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#Concept_vs_implementation" name="4.2">4.2 Concept vs implementation</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Concepts" name="4.3">4.3 Concepts</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#rbtree" name="4.3.1">4.3.1 rbtree</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#rcu" name="4.3.2">4.3.2 rcu</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </ul>
+  <h2><a href="#Kernel_infrastructure" name="5">5 Kernel infrastructure</a></h2>
+<ul>
+    <li><a href="#Process_Scheduler" name="5.1">5.1 Process Scheduler</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#History_of_the_Linux_Process_Scheduler" name="5.1.1">5.1.1 History of the Linux Process Scheduler</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#fork,_exec" name="5.1.2">5.1.2 fork, exec</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#sleep" name="5.1.3">5.1.3 sleep</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#realtime" name="5.1.4">5.1.4 realtime</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#Timers" name="5.2">5.2 Timers</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Interrupt_handling" name="5.2.1">5.2.1 Interrupt handling</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#memory_management" name="5.3">5.3 memory management</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#mmap,_DMA" name="5.3.1">5.3.1 mmap, DMA</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#vfs" name="5.4">5.4 vfs</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Pipes,_files,_and_ttys" name="5.4.1">5.4.1 Pipes, files, and ttys</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Filesystems" name="5.4.2">5.4.2 Filesystems</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#Types_of_filesystems_(see__proc_filesystems)" name="5.4.2.1">5.4.2.1 Types of filesystems (see /proc/filesystems)</a></li>
+      <ul>
+          <li><a href="#Block_backed" name="5.4.2.1.1">5.4.2.1.1 Block backed</a></li>
+        <ul>
+            <li><a href="#ext2" name="5.4.2.1.1.1">5.4.2.1.1.1 ext2</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#jffs2" name="5.4.2.1.1.2">5.4.2.1.1.2 jffs2</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#vxfs" name="5.4.2.1.1.3">5.4.2.1.1.3 vxfs</a></li>
+          </ul>
+          <li><a href="#Ram_backed" name="5.4.2.1.2">5.4.2.1.2 Ram backed</a></li>
+        <ul>
+            <li><a href="#ramfs" name="5.4.2.1.2.1">5.4.2.1.2.1 ramfs</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#tmpfs" name="5.4.2.1.2.2">5.4.2.1.2.2 tmpfs</a></li>
+          </ul>
+          <li><a href="#Synthetic" name="5.4.2.1.3">5.4.2.1.3 Synthetic</a></li>
+        <ul>
+            <li><a href="#proc" name="5.4.2.1.3.1">5.4.2.1.3.1 proc</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#sys" name="5.4.2.1.3.2">5.4.2.1.3.2 sys</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#internal_(pipefs)" name="5.4.2.1.3.3">5.4.2.1.3.3 internal (pipefs)</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#usbfs" name="5.4.2.1.3.4">5.4.2.1.3.4 usbfs</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#devpts" name="5.4.2.1.3.5">5.4.2.1.3.5 devpts</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#rootfs" name="5.4.2.1.3.6">5.4.2.1.3.6 rootfs</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#devfs_(obsolete)" name="5.4.2.1.3.7">5.4.2.1.3.7 devfs (obsolete)</a></li>
+          </ul>
+          <li><a href="#Network" name="5.4.2.1.4">5.4.2.1.4 Network</a></li>
+        <ul>
+            <li><a href="#nfs" name="5.4.2.1.4.1">5.4.2.1.4.1 nfs</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#smb_cifs" name="5.4.2.1.4.2">5.4.2.1.4.2 smb/cifs</a></li>
+            <li><a href="#FUSE" name="5.4.2.1.4.3">5.4.2.1.4.3 FUSE</a></li>
+          </ul>
+        </ul>
+        <li><a href="#Filesystem_drivers" name="5.4.2.2">5.4.2.2 Filesystem drivers</a></li>
+      <ul>
+          <li><a href="#Using" name="5.4.2.2.1">5.4.2.2.1 Using</a></li>
+          <li><a href="#Writing" name="5.4.2.2.2">5.4.2.2.2 Writing</a></li>
+        </ul>
+      </ul>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#Drivers" name="5.5">5.5 Drivers</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Filesystem" name="5.5.1">5.5.1 Filesystem</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Block_(block_layer,_scsi_layer)" name="5.5.2">5.5.2 Block (block layer, scsi layer)</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#SCSI_layer" name="5.5.2.1">5.5.2.1 SCSI layer</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#Character" name="5.5.3">5.5.3 Character</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#serial" name="5.5.3.1">5.5.3.1 serial</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#keyboard" name="5.5.3.2">5.5.3.2 keyboard</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#tty" name="5.5.3.3">5.5.3.3 tty</a></li>
+      <ul>
+          <li><a href="#pty" name="5.5.3.3.1">5.5.3.3.1 pty</a></li>
+        </ul>
+        <li><a href="#audio" name="5.5.3.4">5.5.3.4 audio</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#null" name="5.5.3.5">5.5.3.5 null</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#random_urandom" name="5.5.3.6">5.5.3.6 random/urandom</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#zero" name="5.5.3.7">5.5.3.7 zero</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#DRI" name="5.5.4">5.5.4 DRI</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Network" name="5.5.5">5.5.5 Network</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#Hotplug" name="5.6">5.6 Hotplug</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Input_core" name="5.7">5.7 Input core</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Network" name="5.8">5.8 Network</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Modules" name="5.9">5.9 Modules</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Exported_symbols" name="5.9.1">5.9.1 Exported symbols</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#Busses" name="5.10">5.10 Busses</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Security" name="5.11">5.11 Security</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Traditional_Unix_security_model" name="5.11.1">5.11.1 Traditional Unix security model</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#More_complicated_security_models" name="5.11.2">5.11.2 More complicated security models</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#Posix_capabilities" name="5.11.2.1">5.11.2.1 Posix capabilities</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#SELinux" name="5.11.2.2">5.11.2.2 SELinux</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#Encryption" name="5.11.3">5.11.3 Encryption</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#API_(how_userspace_talks_to_the_kernel)" name="5.12">5.12 API (how userspace talks to the kernel)</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Syscalls" name="5.12.1">5.12.1 Syscalls</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#ioctls" name="5.12.2">5.12.2 ioctls</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#executable_file_formats" name="5.12.3">5.12.3 executable file formats</a></li>
+    <ul>
+        <li><a href="#a.out" name="5.12.3.1">5.12.3.1 a.out</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#elf" name="5.12.3.2">5.12.3.2 elf</a></li>
+      <ul>
+          <li><a href="#css,_bss,_etc." name="5.12.3.2.1">5.12.3.2.1 css, bss, etc.</a></li>
+        </ul>
+        <li><a href="#scripts" name="5.12.3.3">5.12.3.3 scripts</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#flat" name="5.12.3.4">5.12.3.4 flat</a></li>
+        <li><a href="#misc" name="5.12.3.5">5.12.3.5 misc</a></li>
+      </ul>
+      <li><a href="#Device_nodes" name="5.12.4">5.12.4 Device nodes</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Pipes_(new_pipe_infrastructure)" name="5.12.5">5.12.5 Pipes (new pipe infrastructure)</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#Synthetic_filesystems_(as_API)" name="5.12.6">5.12.6 Synthetic filesystems (as API)</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </ul>
+  <h2><a href="#Hardware" name="6">6 Hardware</a></h2>
+<ul>
+    <li><a href="#Architectures" name="6.1">6.1 Architectures</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#alpha" name="6.1.1">6.1.1 alpha</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#arm" name="6.1.2">6.1.2 arm</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#ia64" name="6.1.3">6.1.3 ia64</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#m68knommu" name="6.1.4">6.1.4 m68knommu</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#mips" name="6.1.5">6.1.5 mips</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#parisc" name="6.1.6">6.1.6 parisc</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#powerpc" name="6.1.7">6.1.7 powerpc</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#ppc" name="6.1.8">6.1.8 ppc</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#um" name="6.1.9">6.1.9 um</a></li>
+      <li><a href="#x86_64" name="6.1.10">6.1.10 x86_64</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#DMA,_IRQ,_MMU_(mmap),_IOMMU,_port_I_O" name="6.2">6.2 DMA, IRQ, MMU (mmap), IOMMU, port I/O</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Busses" name="6.3">6.3 Busses</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#PCI,_USB" name="6.3.1">6.3.1 PCI, USB</a></li>
+    </ul>
+  </ul>
+  <h2><a href="#Following_Linux_development" name="7">7 Following Linux development</a></h2>
+<ul>
+    <li><a href="#Distibutions" name="7.1">7.1 Distibutions</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Releases" name="7.2">7.2 Releases</a></li>
+  <ul>
+      <li><a href="#Source_control" name="7.2.1">7.2.1 Source control</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <li><a href="#community" name="7.3">7.3 community</a></li>
+    <li><a href="#Submitting_Patches" name="7.4">7.4 Submitting Patches</a></li>
+  </ul>
+  <h2><a href="#Glossary" name="8">8 Glossary</a></h2>
+<hr>
+
+<h2><a href="#1" name="Sources_of_documentation">1 Sources of documentation</a></h2>
+<span id="Sources of documentation">
+
+<p>These are various upstream sources of documentation, many of which are linked
+into the <a href=http://kernel.org/doc>linux kernel documentation index</a>.</p>
+
+<h2><a href="#1.1" name="From_the_kernel">1.1 From the kernel</a></h2>
+<span id="From the kernel">
+<ul>
+<li><a href=Documentation>Text files in the kernel's Documentation directory.</a></li>
+<li><a href=htmldocs>Output of kernel's "make htmldocs".</a></li>
+<li><a href=makehelp.txt>Output of kernel's "make help".</a></li>
+<li><a href=menuconfig>Menuconfig/kconfig help for each configuration option.</a></li>
+<li><a href=readme>Linux kernel README files</a></li>
+<li><a href=rfc-linux.html>IETF RFCs referred to by kernel source files.</a></li>
+</ul>
+<h2><a href="#1.2" name="Out_on_the_web">1.2 Out on the web</a></h2>
+<span id="Out on the web">
+<ul>
+<li><a href=http://kernel.org/doc/man-pages>Linux man-pages website, includes HTML versions of man pages</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://lwn.net/Kernel/Index/>Linux Weekly News kernel articles</a></li>
+<li>Linux Device Drivers book (<a href=http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/>third edition</a>) (<a href=http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/>second edition</a>)</li>
+<li><a href=ols>Ottawa Linux Symposium papers</a></li>
+<li><a href=als1999>Atlanta Linux Showcase CD (1999)</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://www.linuxjournal.com/xstatic/magazine/archives>Linux Journal archives</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/views/linux/library.jsp>IBM Developerworks Linux Library</a> (also <a href=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linux-kernel/>here</a>)
+</li>
+<li><a href=http://www.tux.org/lkml/>Linux Kernel Mailing List FAQ</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://kernelplanet.org>Kernel Planet (blog aggregator)</a></li>
+<li><a href=video.html>Selected videos of interest</a></li>
+<li><a href=local>Some locally produced docs</a></li>
+</ul>
+<h2><a href="#1.3" name="Standards">1.3 Standards</a></h2>
+<span id="Standards">
+<ul>
+<li><a href=http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/>Single Unix Specification v4</a> (Also known as Open Group Base Specifications issue 7, and POSIX 2008.  See especially <a href=http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/idx/xsh.html>system interfaces</a>)</li>
+<li>C99 standard (defining the C programming language): <a href=http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/standards>ISO/IEC C9899 PDF</a>, <a href=http://busybox.net/~landley/c99-draft.html>html</a>, or <a href=http://c0x.coding-guidelines.com/>searchable website</a>.</li>
+<li><a href=http://www.linux-foundation.org/spec/refspecs/>Linux Foundation's specs page</a> (ELF, Dwarf, ABI...)</li>
+</ul>
+<h2><a href="#1.4" name="Translations">1.4 Translations</a></h2>
+<span id="Translations">
+<ul>
+<li><a href=http://tlktp.sourceforge.net/>Linux Kernel Translation Project</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://kernelnewbies.org/RegionalNewbies>Kernel Newbies regional pages</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://www.linux.or.jp/JF/index.html>Japanese</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://zh-kernel.org/docs>Chinese</a></li>
+</ul>
+<h2><a href="#2" name="Building_from_source">2 Building from source</a></h2>
+<span id="Building from source">
+  <h2><a href="#2.1" name="User_interface">2.1 User interface</a></h2>
+<span id="User interface">
+<p>Building source packages is usually a three step process: configure, build,
+and install.</p>
+
+<p>The Linux kernel is configured with the command "make menuconfig", built
+with the command "make", and installed either manually or with the command
+"make install".</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<pre>
+tar xvjf linux-2.6.??.tar.bz2
+cd linux-2.6.??
+make menuconfig
+make
+make install
+</pre>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>For a description of the make options and targets, type <a href=makehelp.txt>
+make help</a>.</p>
+
+<h2><a href="#2.1.1" name="Get_and_extract_the_source">2.1.1 Get and extract the source</a></h2>
+<span id="Get and extract the source">
+<p>The Linux kernel source code is distributed by
+<a href=http://kernel.org>kernel.org</a> as tar archives.  Grab the most recent
+"stable" release (using the tiny little letter F link) to grab a file of the
+form "linux-2.6.*.tar.bz2" from the
+<a href=http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/>Linux 2.6 releases
+directory</a>.  Then extract this archive with the command "tar xvjf
+linux-2.6.*.tar.bz2".  (Type the command "man tar" for more information on the
+tar command.)  Then cd into the directory created by extracting the archive.</p>
+
+<p>To obtain other Linux kernel versions (such as development releases and
+kernels supplied by <a href="#Distibutions">distributions</a>)
+see <a href="Following_Linux_development">Following Linux development</a>.</p>
+
+<p>To return your linux kernel source directory to its original (unconfigured)
+condition after configuring and building in it, either either delete the
+directory with "rm -r" and re-extract it from the tar archive, or run the
+command "make distclean".</p>
+<h2><a href="#2.1.2" name="Configuring">2.1.2 Configuring</a></h2>
+<span id="Configuring">
+
+<p>Before you can build the kernel, you have to configure it.  Configuring
+selects which features this kernel build should include, and specifies other
+technical information such as buffer sizes and optimization strategies.
+This information is stored in a file named ".config" in the top level directory
+of the kernel source code.  To see the various user interfaces to the
+configuration system, type "<a href=makehelp.txt>make help</a>".</p>
+
+<p>Note that "make clean" does not delete configuration information, but the
+more thorough "make distclean" does.</p>
+
+<h2><a href="#2.1.2.1" name="Using_an_existing_configuration">2.1.2.1 Using an existing configuration</a></h2>
+<span id="Using an existing configuration">
+
+<p>Often when building a kernel, an existing .config file is supplied from
+elsewhere.  Copy it into place, and optionally run "make oldconfig" to run
+the kernel's diagnostics against it to ensure it matches the kernel version
+you're using, updating anything that's out of sync.</p>
+
+<p>Several preset configurations are shipped with the kernel source code.
+Run the command <b>find . -name "*_defconfig"</b> in the kernel source
+directory to seem them all.  Any of these can be copied to .config and
+used as a starting point.</p>
+
+<p>The kernel can also automatically generate various configurations,
+mostly to act as starting points for customization:</p>
+<ul>
+<li><b>make defconfig</b> - Set all options to default values</li>
+<li><b>make allnoconfig</b> - Set all yes/no options to "n"</li>
+<li><b>make allyesconfig</b> - Set all yes/no options to "y"</li>
+<li><b>make allmodconfig</b> - Set all yes/no options to "y" and all "yes/module/no" options to "m"</li>
+<li><b>make randconfig</b> - Set each option randomly (for debugging purposes).</li>
+<li><b>make oldconfig</b> - Update a .config file from a previous version of the kernel to work with the current version.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2><a href="#2.1.2.2" name="Creating_a_custom_kernel_configuration">2.1.2.2 Creating a custom kernel configuration</a></h2>
+<span id="Creating a custom kernel configuration">
+<p>The most common user interface for configuring the kernel is
+<b>menuconfig</b>, an interactive terminal based menuing interface invoked
+through the makefiles via "<b>make menuconfig</b>".  This interface groups the
+configuration questions into a series of menus, showing the current values
+of each symbol and allowing them to be changed in any order.  Each symbol
+has associated help text, explaining what the symbol does and where to find
+more information about it.  This help text is
+<a href=menuconfig>also available as html</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The menuconfig interface is controlled with the following keys:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><b>cursor up/down</b> - move to another symbol</li>
+<li><b>tab</b> - switch action between edit, help, and exit</li>
+<li><b>enter</b> - descend into menu (or help/exit if you hit tab first)</li>
+<li><b>esc</b> - exit menu (prompted to save if exiting top level menu)</li>
+<li><b>space</b> - change configuration symbol under cursor</li>
+<li><b>?</b> - view help for this symbol</li>
+<li><b>/</b> - search for a symbol by name</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Other configuration interfaces (functionally equivalent to menuconfig)
+include:</p>
+<ul>
+<li><b>make config</b> - a simple text based question and answer interface
+(which does not require curses support, or even a tty)</li>
+<li><b>make xconfig</b> - QT based graphical interface</li>
+<li><b>make gconfig</b> - GTK based graphical interface</li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2><a href="#2.1.3" name="building">2.1.3 building</a></h2>
+<span id="building">
+      <h2><a href="#2.1.3.1" name="Building_out_of_tree">2.1.3.1 Building out of tree</a></h2>
+<span id="Building out of tree">
+      <h2><a href="#2.1.4" name="Installing">2.1.4 Installing</a></h2>
+<span id="Installing">
+    <h2><a href="#2.1.5" name="running">2.1.5 running</a></h2>
+<span id="running">
+    <h2><a href="#2.1.6" name="debugging">2.1.6 debugging</a></h2>
+<span id="debugging">
+      <h2><a href="#2.1.6.1" name="QEMU">2.1.6.1 QEMU</a></h2>
+<span id="QEMU">
+      <h2><a href="#2.1.7" name="cross_compiling">2.1.7 cross compiling</a></h2>
+<span id="cross compiling">
+<h2><a href="#2.1.7.1" name="Cross_compiling_vs_native_compiling">2.1.7.1 Cross compiling vs native compiling</a></h2>
+<span id="Cross compiling vs native compiling">
+<p>By default, Linux builds for the same architecture the host system is
+running.  This is called "native compiling".  An x86 system building an x86
+kernel, x86-64 building x86-64, or powerpc building powerpc are all examples
+of native compiling.</p>
+
+<p>Building different binaries than the host runs is called cross compiling.
+<a href=http://landley.net/writing/docs/cross-compiling.html>Cross
+compiling is hard</a>.  The build system for the Linux kernel supports cross
+compiling via a two step process: 1) Specify a different architecture (ARCH)
+during the configure, make, and install stages.  2) Supply a cross compiler
+(CROSS_COMPILE) which can output the correct kind of binary code.  An
+example cross compile command line (building the "arm" architecture) looks
+like:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<pre>make ARCH=arm menuconfig
+make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=armv5l-
+</pre>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>To specify a different architecture than the host, either define the "ARCH"
+environment variable or else add "ARCH=xxx" to the make command line for each
+of the make config, make, and make install stages.  The acceptable values for
+ARCH are the names of the directories in the "arch" subdirectory of the Linux
+kernel source code, see <a href="#Architectures">Architectures</a> for
+details.  All stages of the build must use the same ARCH value, and building a
+second architecture in the same source directory requires "make distclean".
+(Just "make clean" isn't sufficient, things like the include/asm symlink need
+to be removed and recreated.)</p>
+
+<p>To specify a cross compiler prefix, define the CROSS_COMPILE environment
+variable (or add CROSS_COMPILE= to each make command line).  Native compiler
+tools, which output code aimed at the environment they're running in, usually
+have a simple name ("gcc", "ld", "strip").  Cross compilers usually add a
+prefix to the name of each tool, indicating the target they produce code for.
+To tell the Linux kernel build to use a cross compiler named "armv4l-gcc" (and
+corresponding "armv4l-ld" and "armv4l-strip") specify "CROSS_COMPILE=armv4l-".
+(Prefixes ending in a dash are common, and forgetting the trailing dash in
+CROSS_COMPILE is a common mistake.  Don't forget to add the cross compiler
+tools to your $PATH.)</p>
+<h2><a href="#2.1.7.2" name="User_Mode_Linux">2.1.7.2 User Mode Linux</a></h2>
+<span id="User Mode Linux">
+      <h2><a href="#2.2" name="Infrastructure">2.2 Infrastructure</a></h2>
+<span id="Infrastructure">
+    <h2><a href="#2.2.1" name="kconfig">2.2.1 kconfig</a></h2>
+<span id="kconfig">
+<p>The Linux configuration system is called Kconfig.  The various
+configuration front-ends (such as menuconfig) parse data files
+written in the <a href=Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.txt>Kconfig language</a>,
+which define the available symbols and provide default values, help entries,
+and so on.</p>
+
+<p>The source code for the front ends is in scripts/kconfig.  The
+Makefile in this directory defines the make targets for the configuration
+system.</p>
+
+    <h2><a href="#2.2.2" name="kbuild">2.2.2 kbuild</a></h2>
+<span id="kbuild">
+    <h2><a href="#2.2.3" name="build_and_link_(tmppiggy)">2.2.3 build and link (tmppiggy)</a></h2>
+<span id="build and link (tmppiggy)">
+    <h2><a href="#3" name="Installing_and_using_the_kernel">3 Installing and using the kernel</a></h2>
+<span id="Installing and using the kernel">
+  <h2><a href="#3.1" name="Installing">3.1 Installing</a></h2>
+<span id="Installing">
+    <h2><a href="#3.1.1" name="Kernel_image">3.1.1 Kernel image</a></h2>
+<span id="Kernel image">
+    <h2><a href="#3.1.2" name="Bootloader">3.1.2 Bootloader</a></h2>
+<span id="Bootloader">
+    <h2><a href="#3.2" name="A_working_Linux_root_filesystem">3.2 A working Linux root filesystem</a></h2>
+<span id="A working Linux root filesystem">
+<p><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-176-182.pdf>Advanced Boot Scripts</a></p>
+    <h2><a href="#3.2.1" name="Finding_and_mounting__">3.2.1 Finding and mounting /</a></h2>
+<span id="Finding and mounting /">
+      <h2><a href="#3.2.1.1" name="initramfs,_switch_root_vs_pivot_root,__dev_console">3.2.1.1 initramfs, switch_root vs pivot_root, /dev/console</a></h2>
+<span id="initramfs, switch_root vs pivot_root, /dev/console">
+      <h2><a href="#3.2.2" name="Running_programs">3.2.2 Running programs</a></h2>
+<span id="Running programs">
+      <h2><a href="#3.2.2.1" name="init_program_and_PID_1">3.2.2.1 init program and PID 1</a></h2>
+<span id="init program and PID 1">
+        <h2><a href="#3.2.2.1.1" name="What_does_daemonizing_really_mean">3.2.2.1.1 What does daemonizing really mean?</a></h2>
+<span id="What does daemonizing really mean?">
+        <h2><a href="#3.2.2.2" name="Executable_formats">3.2.2.2 Executable formats</a></h2>
+<span id="Executable formats">
+<p>The Linux kernel runs programs in response to the
+<a href=xmlman/man3/exec.html>exec</a> syscall, which is called on a
+file.  This file must have the
+executable bit set, and must be on a filesystem that implements mmap() and which
+isn't mounted with the "noexec" option.  The kernel understands
+several different <a href="#executable_file_formats">executable file
+formats</a>, the most common of which are shell scripts and ELF binaries.</p>
+        <h2><a href="#3.2.2.2.1" name="Shell_scripts">3.2.2.2.1 Shell scripts</a></h2>
+<span id="Shell scripts">
+<p>If the first two bytes of an executable file are the characters "#!", the
+file is treated as a script file.  The kernel parses the first line of the file
+(until the first newline), and the first argument (immediately following
+the #! with no space) is used as absolute path to the script's interpreter,
+which must be an executable file.  Any additional arguments on the first
+line of the file (separated by whitespace) are passed as the first arguments
+to that interpreter executable.  The interpreter's next argument is the name of
+the script file, followed by the arguments given on the command line.</p>
+
+<p>To see this behavior in action, run the following:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<pre>echo "#!/bin/echo hello" > temp
+chmod +x temp
+./temp one two three
+</pre>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The result should be:</p>
+<blockquote>hello ./temp one two three</blockquote>
+
+<p>This is how shell scripts, perl, python, and other scripting languages
+work.  Even C code can be run as a script by installing the
+<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_C_Compiler>tinycc</a> package,
+adding "#!/usr/bin/tcc -run" to the start of the .c file, and setting the
+executable bit on the .c file.</p>
+        <h2><a href="#3.2.2.2.2" name="ELF">3.2.2.2.2 ELF</a></h2>
+<span id="ELF">
+          <h2><a href="#3.2.2.2.2.1" name="Shared_libraries">3.2.2.2.2.1 Shared libraries</a></h2>
+<span id="Shared libraries">
+          <h2><a href="#3.2.2.3" name="C_library">3.2.2.3 C library</a></h2>
+<span id="C library">
+<p>Most userspace programs access operating system functionality through a C
+library, usually installed at "/lib/libc.so.*".  The C library wraps system
+calls, and provides implementations of various standard functions.</p>
+
+<p>Because almost all other programming languages are implemented in C
+(including python, perl, php, java, javascript, ruby, flash, and just about
+everything else), programs written in other languages also make use of the
+C library to access operating system services.</p>
+
+<p>The most common C library implementations for Linux are
+<a href=http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/6.2/chapter06/glibc.html>glibc</a>
+and <a href=http://uClibc.org>uClibc</a>.  Both are full-featured
+implementations capable of supporting a full-featured desktop Linux
+distribution.</p>
+
+<p>The main advantage of glibc is that it's the standard implementation used by the
+largest desktop and server distributions, and has more features than any other
+implementation.  The main advantage of uClibc is that it's much smaller and
+simpler than glibc while still implementing almost all the same functionality.
+For comparison, a "hello world" program statically linked against glibc is half
+a megabyte when stripped, while the same program statically linked against
+uClibc strips down to 7k.</p>
+
+<p>Other commonly used special-purpose C library implementations include
+<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klibc>klibc</a> and
+<a href=http://www.sourceware.org/newlib/>newlib</a>.</p>
+
+<h2><a href="#3.2.2.3.1" name="Exporting_kernel_headers">3.2.2.3.1 Exporting kernel headers</a></h2>
+<span id="Exporting kernel headers">
+<p>Building a C library from source code requires a special set
+of Linux kernel header files, which describe the API of the specific version
+of the Linux kernel the C library will interface with.  However, the header
+files in the kernel source code are designed to build the kernel and contain
+a lot of internal information that would only confuse userspace.  These
+kernel headers must be "exported", filtering them for use by user space.</p>
+
+<p>Modern Linux kernels (based on 2.6.19.1 and newer) export kernel headers via
+the "make headers_install" command.  See
+<a href=Documentation/make/headers_install.txt>exporting kernel headers for
+use by userspace</a> for more information.</p>
+<h2><a href="#3.2.2.4" name="Dynamic_loader">3.2.2.4 Dynamic loader</a></h2>
+<span id="Dynamic loader">
+      <h2><a href="#3.2.3" name="FHS_directories">3.2.3 FHS directories</a></h2>
+<span id="FHS directories">
+      <p>FHS spec</p>
+      <a href="pending/hotplug.txt">populating /dev from sysfs</a>.
+    <h2><a href="#4" name="Reading_the_source_code">4 Reading the source code</a></h2>
+<span id="Reading the source code">
+  <h2><a href="#4.1" name="Source_code_layout">4.1 Source code layout</a></h2>
+<span id="Source code layout">
+    <h2><a href="#4.1.1" name="Following_the_boot_process">4.1.1 Following the boot process</a></h2>
+<span id="Following the boot process">
+    <h2><a href="#4.1.2" name="Major_subsystems">4.1.2 Major subsystems</a></h2>
+<span id="Major subsystems">
+    <h2><a href="#4.1.3" name="Architectures">4.1.3 Architectures</a></h2>
+<span id="Architectures">
+    <h2><a href="#4.2" name="Concept_vs_implementation">4.2 Concept vs implementation</a></h2>
+<span id="Concept vs implementation">
+    <p>Often the first implementation of a concept gets replaced.
+       Journaling != reiserfs, virtualization != xen, devfs gave way to udev...
+       Don't let your excitement for the concept blind you to the possibility
+       of alternate implementations.</p>
+  <h2><a href="#4.3" name="Concepts">4.3 Concepts</a></h2>
+<span id="Concepts">
+    <h2><a href="#4.3.1" name="rbtree">4.3.1 rbtree</a></h2>
+<span id="rbtree">
+    <h2><a href="#4.3.2" name="rcu">4.3.2 rcu</a></h2>
+<span id="rcu">
+<p>RCU stands for "Read Copy Update".  The technique is a lockless way to manage data structures
+(such as linked lists or trees) on SMP systems, using a specific sequence of reads and updates,
+plus a garbage collection step, to avoid the need for locks in both the read and the update
+paths.</p>
+
+<p>RCU was invented by Paul McKenney, who maintains an excellent page of
+<a href=http://www.rdrop.com/users/paulmck/RCU/>RCU documentation</a>.
+The Linux kernel also contains some <a href=Documentation/RCU>additional RCU
+Documentation</a>.</p>
+
+<p>RCU cannot be configured out of the kernel, but the kconfig symbol
+<a href=menuconfig/lib-Kconfig.debug.html#RCU_TORTURE_TEST>CONFIG_RCU_TORTURE_TEST</a> controls the
+<a href=Documentation/RCU/torture.txt>RCU Torture test module</a>.</p>
+
+<p>References:</p>
+<ul>
+<li><a href=ols/2001/read-copy.pdf>Read-Copy Update</a> (OLS 2001)</li>
+</ul>
+
+    <h2><a href="#5" name="Kernel_infrastructure">5 Kernel infrastructure</a></h2>
+<span id="Kernel infrastructure">
+  <h2><a href="#5.1" name="Process_Scheduler">5.1 Process Scheduler</a></h2>
+<span id="Process Scheduler">
+
+<h2><a href="#5.1.1" name="History_of_the_Linux_Process_Scheduler">5.1.1 History of the Linux Process Scheduler</a></h2>
+<span id="History of the Linux Process Scheduler">
+<p>The original Linux process scheduler was a simple design based on
+a goodness() function that recalculated the priority of every task at every
+context switch, to find the next task to switch to.  This served almost
+unchanged through the 2.4 series, but didn't scale to large numbers of
+processes, nor to SMP.  By 2001 there were calls for
+change (such as the OLS paper <a href=ols/2001/elss.pdf>Enhancing Linux
+Scheduler Scalability</a>), and the issue
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020107_149.html#1>came to a head</a> in December 2001.</p>
+
+<p>In January 2002, Ingo Molnar
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020114_150.html#4>introduced the "O(1)" process scheduler</a> for the 2.5 kernel series, a design
+based on separate "active" and "expired" arrays, one per processor.  As the name
+implied, this found the next task to switch to in constant time no matter
+how many processes the system was running.</p>
+
+<p>Other developers (<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020513_166.html#4>such as Con Colivas</a>) started working on it,
+and began a period of extensive scheduler development.  The early history
+of Linux O(1) scheduler development was covered by the website Kernel
+Traffic.</p>
+
+<p>During 2002 this work included
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020121_151.html#8>preemption</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020121_151.html#9>User Mode Linux support</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020211_153.html#2>new drops</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020211_153.html#7>runtime tuning</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020304_156.html#6>NUMA support</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020429_164.html#4>cpu affinity</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020617_171.html#4>scheduler hints</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020701_173.html#1>64-bit support</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020715_175.html#5>backports to the 2.4 kernel</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020715_175.html#4>SCHED_IDLE</a>,
+discussion of <a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20020729_177.html#1>gang scheduling</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20021014_188.html#4>more NUMA</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20021118_192.html#9>even more NUMA</a>).  By the end of 2002, the O(1) scheduler was becoming
+the standard <a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20021223_197.html#1>even in the 2.4 series</a>.</p>
+
+<p>2003 saw support added for
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20030124_202.html#14>hyperthreading as a NUMA variant</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20030330_211.html#3>interactivity bugfix</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20030616_219.html#4>starvation and affinity bugfixes</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20030616_219.html#8>more NUMA improvements</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20030811_227.html#2>interactivity improvements</a>,
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20030811_227.html#8>even more NUMA improvements</a>,
+a proposal for <a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20031026_237.html#7>Variable Scheduling Timeouts</a> (the first rumblings of what
+would later come to be called "dynamic ticks"),
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20031201_243.html#10>more on hyperthreading</a>...</p>
+
+<p>In 2004 there was work on <a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20040120_248.html#2>load balancing and priority handling</a>, and
+<a href=http://mirell.org/kernel-traffic/kernel-traffic/kt20040212_252.html#5>still more work on hyperthreading</a>...</p>
+
+<p>In 2004 developers proposed several extensive changes to the O(1) scheduler.
+Linux Weekly News wrote about Nick Piggin's
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/80911/>domain-based scheduler</a>
+and Con Colivas' <a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/87729/>staircase scheduler</a>.  The follow-up article <a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/96554/>Scheduler tweaks get serious</a> covers both.  Nick's scheduling domains
+were merged into the 2.6 series.</p>
+
+<p>Linux Weekly News also wrote about other scheduler work:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/83633/>Filtered wakeups</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/105366/>When should a process be migrated</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/109458/>Pluggable and realtime schedulers</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/120797/>Low latency for audio applications:</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/176635/>Solving starvation problems in the scheduler:</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/186438/>SMPnice</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>In 2007, Con Colivas proposed a new scheduler, <a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/224865/>The Rotating Staircase Deadline Scheduler</a>, which
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/226054/>hit a snag</a>.  Ingo
+Molnar came up with a new scheduler, which he named the
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/230501/>Completely Fair Scheduler</a>,
+described in the LWN writeups
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/230574/>Schedulers: the plot thickens</a>,
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/231672/>this week in the scheduling discussion</a>, and
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/240474/>CFS group scheduling</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The CFS scheduler was merged into 2.6.23.</p>
+<h2><a href="#5.1.2" name="fork,_exec">5.1.2 fork, exec</a></h2>
+<span id="fork, exec">
+    <h2><a href="#5.1.3" name="sleep">5.1.3 sleep</a></h2>
+<span id="sleep">
+    <h2><a href="#5.1.4" name="realtime">5.1.4 realtime</a></h2>
+<span id="realtime">
+<p><a href=ols/2001/rtai.pdf>The Real-Time Application Interface</a> (OLS 2001, obsolete)</a></p>
+    <h2><a href="#5.2" name="Timers">5.2 Timers</a></h2>
+<span id="Timers">
+    <h2><a href="#5.2.1" name="Interrupt_handling">5.2.1 Interrupt handling</a></h2>
+<span id="Interrupt handling">
+    <h2><a href="#5.3" name="memory_management">5.3 memory management</a></h2>
+<span id="memory management">
+    <ul>
+    <li><a href="gorman">Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager</a>, online book by Mel Gorman.</li>
+    <li> What every programmer should know about memory, article series by Ulrich Drepper,
+parts
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/250967/>one</a>,
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/252125/>two</a>,
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/253361/>three</a>,
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/254445/>four</a>,
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/255364/>five</a>.
+</li>
+    <li>Ars technica ram guide, article series by Jon "Hannibal" Stokes, parts
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/paedia/r/ram_guide/ram_guide.part1-1.html>one</a>,
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/paedia/r/ram_guide/ram_guide.part1-1.html>two</a>,
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/paedia/r/ram_guide/ram_guide.part3-1.html>three</a></li>
+    </ul>
+    <h2><a href="#5.3.1" name="mmap,_DMA">5.3.1 mmap, DMA</a></h2>
+<span id="mmap, DMA">
+    <h2><a href="#5.4" name="vfs">5.4 vfs</a></h2>
+<span id="vfs">
+    <h2><a href="#5.4.1" name="Pipes,_files,_and_ttys">5.4.1 Pipes, files, and ttys</a></h2>
+<span id="Pipes, files, and ttys">
+<p>A pipe can be read from or written to, transmitting a sequence of bytes
+in order.</p>
+
+<p>A file can do what a pipe can, and adds the ability to seek to a location,
+query the current location, and query the length of the file (all of which are
+an integer number off bytes from the beginning of the file).</p>
+
+<p>A tty can do what a pipe can, and adds a speed (in bits per second)
+and cursor location (X and Y, with the upper left corner at 0,0).  Oh, and
+you can make it go beep.</p>
+
+<p>Note that you can't call lseek() on a tty and you can't call termios
+(man 3 termios) functions on a file.  Each can be treated as a pipe.</p>
+    <h2><a href="#5.4.2" name="Filesystems">5.4.2 Filesystems</a></h2>
+<span id="Filesystems">
+      <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1" name="Types_of_filesystems_(see__proc_filesystems)">5.4.2.1 Types of filesystems (see /proc/filesystems)</a></h2>
+<span id="Types of filesystems (see /proc/filesystems)">
+        <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.1" name="Block_backed">5.4.2.1.1 Block backed</a></h2>
+<span id="Block backed">
+<h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.1.1" name="ext2">5.4.2.1.1.1 ext2</a></h2>
+<span id="ext2">
+  <ul>
+  <li><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-117-129.pdf>Online ext2 and ext3 Filesystem Resizing</a> (OLS 2002)</li>
+  </ul>
+<h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.1.2" name="jffs2">5.4.2.1.1.2 jffs2</a></h2>
+<span id="jffs2">
+  <ul>
+  <li><a href=ols/2001/jffs2.pdf>JFFS: The Journalling Flash Filesystem</a> (OLS 2001)</li>
+  </ul>
+<h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.1.3" name="vxfs">5.4.2.1.1.3 vxfs</a></h2>
+<span id="vxfs">
+<ul>
+  <li><a href=menuconfig/fs-Kconfig.html#VXFS_FS>CONFIG_VXFS_FS</a></li>
+  <li><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-191-196.pdf>Reverse engineering an advanced filesystem</a></li>
+</ul>
+<h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.2" name="Ram_backed">5.4.2.1.2 Ram backed</a></h2>
+<span id="Ram backed">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.2.1" name="ramfs">5.4.2.1.2.1 ramfs</a></h2>
+<span id="ramfs">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.2.2" name="tmpfs">5.4.2.1.2.2 tmpfs</a></h2>
+<span id="tmpfs">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.3" name="Synthetic">5.4.2.1.3 Synthetic</a></h2>
+<span id="Synthetic">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.3.1" name="proc">5.4.2.1.3.1 proc</a></h2>
+<span id="proc">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.3.2" name="sys">5.4.2.1.3.2 sys</a></h2>
+<span id="sys">
+<p>Although the sysfs filesystem probably wasn't intentionally named after the
+greek myth about pushing a rock to the top of a hill only to see it forever
+roll back down again, this is a remarkably accurate analogy for the
+task of documenting sysfs.</p>
+
+<p>The maintainers of sysfs do not believe in a stable API, and change
+userspace-visible elements from release to release.  The rationale is that
+sysfs exports information from inside the kernel to outside the kernel
+(what API doesn't?) and the kernel internals change, thus sysfs changes to
+reflect it.  This doesn't explain why sysfs regularly changes things that aren't
+dictated by kernel internals, such as moving partition directories under block
+device directories after initially exporting them at the same level, moving
+/sys/block into /sys/devices, removing the "devices" symlink, and so on.<p>
+
+<p>In reality, sysfs is treated as a private API exported for the use of the
+"udev" program, which is maintained by the same developers as sysfs.  Any
+attempt to use sysfs directly from other programs is condemned by sysfs'
+authors as an abuse of sysfs, and attemps to document it are actively resisted
+and ridiculed.  (Yes, you must often update udev when you update the kernel.)</p>
+
+<p>The following documentation reflects the current state of sysfs.  This is
+likely to change in future, as its maintainers break compatability with
+existing userspace programs they didn't personally write.</p>
+
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.3.3" name="internal_(pipefs)">5.4.2.1.3.3 internal (pipefs)</a></h2>
+<span id="internal (pipefs)">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.3.4" name="usbfs">5.4.2.1.3.4 usbfs</a></h2>
+<span id="usbfs">
+http://www.linux-usb.org/USB-guide/x173.html
+http://www.linux-usb.org/USB-guide/c607.html
+http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7466
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.3.5" name="devpts">5.4.2.1.3.5 devpts</a></h2>
+<span id="devpts">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.3.6" name="rootfs">5.4.2.1.3.6 rootfs</a></h2>
+<span id="rootfs">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.3.7" name="devfs_(obsolete)">5.4.2.1.3.7 devfs (obsolete)</a></h2>
+<span id="devfs (obsolete)">
+<p>Devfs was the first attempt to do a dynamic /dev directory which could change
+in response to hotpluggable hardware, by doing the seemingly obvious thing of
+creating a kernel filesystem to mount on /dev which would adjust itself as
+the kernel detected changes in the available hardware.</p>
+
+<p>Devfs was an interesting learning experience, but turned out to be the wrong
+approach, and was replaced by sysfs and udev.  Devfs was removed in kernel
+version 2.6.18.  See
+<a href=local/hotplug-history.html>the history of hotplug</a> for details.</p>
+
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.4" name="Network">5.4.2.1.4 Network</a></h2>
+<span id="Network">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.4.1" name="nfs">5.4.2.1.4.1 nfs</a></h2>
+<span id="nfs">
+<p><a href=ols/2001/nfsv4_ols.pdf>Linux NFS Version 4: Implementation and Administration</a> (OLS 2001)</a></p>
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.4.2" name="smb_cifs">5.4.2.1.4.2 smb/cifs</a></h2>
+<span id="smb/cifs">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.1.4.3" name="FUSE">5.4.2.1.4.3 FUSE</a></h2>
+<span id="FUSE">
+          <h2><a href="#5.4.2.2" name="Filesystem_drivers">5.4.2.2 Filesystem drivers</a></h2>
+<span id="Filesystem drivers">
+        <h2><a href="#5.4.2.2.1" name="Using">5.4.2.2.1 Using</a></h2>
+<span id="Using">
+        <h2><a href="#5.4.2.2.2" name="Writing">5.4.2.2.2 Writing</a></h2>
+<span id="Writing">
+        <h2><a href="#5.5" name="Drivers">5.5 Drivers</a></h2>
+<span id="Drivers">
+    <h2><a href="#5.5.1" name="Filesystem">5.5.1 Filesystem</a></h2>
+<span id="Filesystem">
+    <h2><a href="#5.5.2" name="Block_(block_layer,_scsi_layer)">5.5.2 Block (block layer, scsi layer)</a></h2>
+<span id="Block (block layer, scsi layer)">
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.2.1" name="SCSI_layer">5.5.2.1 SCSI layer</a></h2>
+<span id="SCSI layer">
+	<ul>
+	<li><a href="Documentation/scsi">Documentation/scsi</a> scsi.txt scsi_mid_low_api.txt scsi-generic.txt scsi_eh.txt</li>
+        <li><a href="http://sg.torque.net/sg/p/sg_v3_ho.html">SCSI Generic (sg) HOWTO</a></li>
+	<li><a href="xmlman/man4/sd.html">man 4 sd</a></li>
+        <li><a href="http://www.t10.org/scsi-3.htm">SCSI standards</a></li>
+        <li><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-40-49.pdf>Incrementally Improving the Linux SCSI Subsystem</a> (OLS 2002)</li>
+	</ul>
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.3" name="Character">5.5.3 Character</a></h2>
+<span id="Character">
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.3.1" name="serial">5.5.3.1 serial</a></h2>
+<span id="serial">
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.3.2" name="keyboard">5.5.3.2 keyboard</a></h2>
+<span id="keyboard">
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.3.3" name="tty">5.5.3.3 tty</a></h2>
+<span id="tty">
+        <h2><a href="#5.5.3.3.1" name="pty">5.5.3.3.1 pty</a></h2>
+<span id="pty">
+        <h2><a href="#5.5.3.4" name="audio">5.5.3.4 audio</a></h2>
+<span id="audio">
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.3.5" name="null">5.5.3.5 null</a></h2>
+<span id="null">
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.3.6" name="random_urandom">5.5.3.6 random/urandom</a></h2>
+<span id="random/urandom">
+<p><a href=http://eprint.iacr.org/2006/086.pdf>Analysis of the Linux Random Number Generator</a> - Zvi Gutterman, Benny Pinkas, Tzachy Reinman (iacr 2006)</p>
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.3.7" name="zero">5.5.3.7 zero</a></h2>
+<span id="zero">
+      <h2><a href="#5.5.4" name="DRI">5.5.4 DRI</a></h2>
+<span id="DRI">
+    <h2><a href="#5.5.5" name="Network">5.5.5 Network</a></h2>
+<span id="Network">
+    <h2><a href="#5.6" name="Hotplug">5.6 Hotplug</a></h2>
+<span id="Hotplug">
+<p><a href=http://kernel.org/ols/2001/hotplug.pdf>Hotpluggable devices and the Linux kernel</a> (OLS 2001)</p>
+<p><a href=local/hotplug-history.html>The history of hotplug</a></p>
+  <h2><a href="#5.7" name="Input_core">5.7 Input core</a></h2>
+<span id="Input core">
+  <h2><a href="#5.8" name="Network">5.8 Network</a></h2>
+<span id="Network">
+<pre>
+physical
+  plip
+  serial/slip/ppp
+  ethernet
+routing
+  ipv4
+  ipv6
+</pre>
+<p><a href=ols/2001/mipl.pdf>MIPL Mobile IPv6 for Linux in HUT Campus Network MediaPoli</a> (OLS 2001)</p>
+<p><a href=ols/2001/sctp.pdf>Linux Kernel SCTP: The Third Transport</a> (OLS 2001)</p>
+<p><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-8-30.pdf>TCPIP Network Stack Performance in Linux Kernel 2.4 and 2.5</a></p>
+  <h2><a href="#5.9" name="Modules">5.9 Modules</a></h2>
+<span id="Modules">
+    <h2><a href="#5.9.1" name="Exported_symbols">5.9.1 Exported symbols</a></h2>
+<span id="Exported symbols">
+      <p>EXPORT_SYMBOL() vs EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL()</p>
+      <p>List of exported symbols.</p>
+    <h2><a href="#5.10" name="Busses">5.10 Busses</a></h2>
+<span id="Busses">
+  <h2><a href="#5.11" name="Security">5.11 Security</a></h2>
+<span id="Security">
+    <h2><a href="#5.11.1" name="Traditional_Unix_security_model">5.11.1 Traditional Unix security model</a></h2>
+<span id="Traditional Unix security model">
+Users, groups, files (rwx), signals.
+    <h2><a href="#5.11.2" name="More_complicated_security_models">5.11.2 More complicated security models</a></h2>
+<span id="More complicated security models">
+<p>The traditional Unix security model is too simple to satisfy the
+certification requirements of large corporate and governmental organizations,
+so several add-on security models have been implemented to increase
+complexity.  There is some debate as to which of these (if any) are actually an
+improvement.</p>
+
+      <h2><a href="#5.11.2.1" name="Posix_capabilities">5.11.2.1 Posix capabilities</a></h2>
+<span id="Posix capabilities">
+http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/hardened/capabilities.xml
+      <h2><a href="#5.11.2.2" name="SELinux">5.11.2.2 SELinux</a></h2>
+<span id="SELinux">
+<p><a href=ols/2001/selinux.pdf>Meeting Critical Security Objectives with Security-Enhanced Linux</a> (OLS 2001)</p>
+<p><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-65-72.pdf>SE Debian: how to make NSA SE LInux work in a distribution</a> (OLS 2002)</p>
+      <h2><a href="#5.11.3" name="Encryption">5.11.3 Encryption</a></h2>
+<span id="Encryption">
+<p><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-73-92.pdf>The Long Road to the Advanced Encryption Standard</a></p>
+    <h2><a href="#5.12" name="API_(how_userspace_talks_to_the_kernel)">5.12 API (how userspace talks to the kernel)</a></h2>
+<span id="API (how userspace talks to the kernel)">
+    <h2><a href="#5.12.1" name="Syscalls">5.12.1 Syscalls</a></h2>
+<span id="Syscalls">
+    <h2><a href="#5.12.2" name="ioctls">5.12.2 ioctls</a></h2>
+<span id="ioctls">
+    <h2><a href="#5.12.3" name="executable_file_formats">5.12.3 executable file formats</a></h2>
+<span id="executable file formats">
+      <h2><a href="#5.12.3.1" name="a.out">5.12.3.1 a.out</a></h2>
+<span id="a.out">
+      <h2><a href="#5.12.3.2" name="elf">5.12.3.2 elf</a></h2>
+<span id="elf">
+        <h2><a href="#5.12.3.2.1" name="css,_bss,_etc.">5.12.3.2.1 css, bss, etc.</a></h2>
+<span id="css, bss, etc.">
+        <h2><a href="#5.12.3.3" name="scripts">5.12.3.3 scripts</a></h2>
+<span id="scripts">
+      <h2><a href="#5.12.3.4" name="flat">5.12.3.4 flat</a></h2>
+<span id="flat">
+      <h2><a href="#5.12.3.5" name="misc">5.12.3.5 misc</a></h2>
+<span id="misc">
+      <h2><a href="#5.12.4" name="Device_nodes">5.12.4 Device nodes</a></h2>
+<span id="Device nodes">
+    <h2><a href="#5.12.5" name="Pipes_(new_pipe_infrastructure)">5.12.5 Pipes (new pipe infrastructure)</a></h2>
+<span id="Pipes (new pipe infrastructure)">
+    <h2><a href="#5.12.6" name="Synthetic_filesystems_(as_API)">5.12.6 Synthetic filesystems (as API)</a></h2>
+<span id="Synthetic filesystems (as API)">
+    <h2><a href="#6" name="Hardware">6 Hardware</a></h2>
+<span id="Hardware">
+  <h2><a href="#6.1" name="Architectures">6.1 Architectures</a></h2>
+<span id="Architectures">
+<p>Linux supports many more hardware platforms than its original PC.
+The first modern port of Linux was to the DEC Alpha processor
+[TODO: open sources]</p>
+
+<p>The most widely used modern ports are i386, x86-64, ARM, mips, and powerpc,
+all of which are supported by the emulator <a href=http://qemu.org>QEMU</a>.
+Bootable kernel and filesystem images for those platforms (bootable under
+QEMU) are available <a href=http://landley.net/code/firmware>here</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Alpha, sparc, parisc, itanium are primarily of historical interest.
+Each of those platforms used to have a bigger developer community than it
+does now, but has peaked and gone into a pronounced decline.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the other platforms have special-purpose niches.  For example,
+super-hitachi is widely used in the Japanese auto industry.</p>
+
+<pre>
+avr32
+blackfin
+cris
+frv
+h8300
+i386
+m32r
+m68k
+s390
+sh
+sh64
+sparc
+sparc64
+v850
+xtensa
+
+</pre>
+<h2><a href="#6.1.1" name="alpha">6.1.1 alpha</a></h2>
+<span id="alpha">
+<p>The now-obsolete
+<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha>DEC Alpha</a> was one of the
+first 64-bit processors, one of the fastest and cleanest processor
+designs of its time, and still has fans to this day.  Despite excellent
+performance and widespread use in supercomputers, manufacturing of
+Alpha was
+<a href=http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,2127122,00.htm>repeatedly
+disrupted</a> and a series of acquisitions by PC vendors uninterested in any
+non-PC architecture.  Despite pressure from users and even
+<a href=http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1998/04/digitala.shtm>government intervention</a>
+to preserve the Alpha processor, new development of the hardware ceased
+towards the end of the 1990's.</p>
+
+<p>The legacy of Alpha lives on in the x86-64 architecture.  When
+<a href=http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/page1/98/01/27/com.html>Compaq
+bought DEC</a> it acquired the rights to the Alpha processor, but not the
+chip design team.  Many ex-Alpha chip designers wound up at AMD, where they
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/cpu/3q99/athlon/athlon-1.html>designed
+the Athlon</a> (x86) and Opteron (x86-64) processors.  Intel also
+<a href=http://www.news.com/Compaq-Life-after-Alpha/2100-1001_3-268986.html?tag=st.ref.goo>licensed</a> and <a href=http://www.news.com/Intel-hyperthreading-shows-Digital-roots/2100-1001_3-961495.html?tag=st.ref.goo>incorporated</a>
+Alpha technology into all its processor lines.  Internally, modern PC
+processors owe more to the Alpha than to the original 8086 processor.</p>
+
+<p>Alpha is of great historical importance to Linux as the
+<a href=http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/linus.html>first non-PC
+port incorporated into Linus's tree</a>, as well as the first 64-bit port.
+<a href=http://qemu.org>QEMU</a> recently grew preliminary support for
+emulating Alpha processors.</a>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href=http://www.alphalinux.org/>AlphaLinux.org</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2><a href="#6.1.2" name="arm">6.1.2 arm</a></h2>
+<span id="arm">
+<p>The ARM processor is the most popular embedded processor, powering 80-90% of
+the cell phone market and most battery powered handheld devices.  The iPod,
+iPhone, Nokia N800, and Nintendo DS are all ARM-based.</p>
+
+<p>While the x86 family has the world's leading price/performance ratio,
+the ARM processor family has the best ratio power consumption to performance.
+By delivering the best bang for the watt, ARM has become overwhelmingly popular
+in embedded devices.</p>
+
+<p>ARM originally for "Acorn RISC Machine", a processor designed by a British
+company in the early 80's to replace the 8-bit 6502 in Acorn's successful BBC
+Micro.  Unlike most RISC design efforts which focused on using RISC techniques
+to increase performance, Acorn focused on creating a small, simple processor
+design, initially with under 25,000 transistors (these days with about 43,000
+transistors worth of core logic, before adding a cache and memory controller).
+In 1990, the processor design team moved to a new company,
+<a href=http://www.arm.com>ARM Ltd</a>, which doesn't manufacture chips but
+instead licenses its designs to other companies interested in fabricating
+chips.  This also allows ARM designs to be easily customized, and
+embedded in things like network cards or system-on-chip designs.</p>
+
+<p>Arm processor generations are divided by "architecture", which among other
+things indicates the instruction set the processor can run:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>ARMv3 - The oldest 32-bit ARM architecture, now considered obsolete.</li>
+<li>ARMv4 - The oldest architecture still in widespread use.</li>
+<li>ARMv5 - The oldest architecture still in production.  The baseline
+modern" architecture.</li>
+<li>ARMv6,v7 - An architecture ARM inc has used NDA terms to prevent QEMU
+developers from releasing support for (apparently because it wants to sell
+proprietary emulators, and considers a GPLed emulator a threat).  These
+processors run ARMv4/v5 code.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>The newest archtecture that can be emulated by
+<a href=http://qemu.org>QEMU</a> is ARMv5TEJ (I.E. ARMv5
+with the Thumb, Enhanced DSP, and Java extensions).  Unfortunately, ARM Ltd.
+has leveraged its NDAs with prominent open source developers to
+<a href=http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2007-02/msg00426.html>explicitly
+forbid</a> them from contributing ARMv6 support to QEMU, apparently because
+it's trying to sell a competing proprietary emulation product.</p>
+
+<p>Newer ARM processors run older instruction sets, and are thus backwards
+compatible.  The advantage of newer instruction sets is that they execute
+faster (and are thus more energy efficient), and some produce smaller binary
+sizes (the "Thumb" extensions are designed specifically for small code size,
+but may exchange performance to get it).  Recompiling an ARMv4 program as ARMv5
+usually results in a 25% performance improvement.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/architecture.html">The ARM instruction set architecture</a>
+<li><a href="http://www.elinux.org/ARM_Processor">List of ARM processors</a></li>
+<li><a href="http://www.arm.linux.org.uk">The ARM Linux web page</a></li>
+<li><a href=http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/developer/machines/>List of
+over 1500 known arm systems</a>.</li>
+<li><a href=http://www.ot1.com/arm/armchap1.html>History of the ARM CPU</a></li>
+</ul>
+<h2><a href="#6.1.3" name="ia64">6.1.3 ia64</a></h2>
+<span id="ia64">
+<p>The Itanium was a failed attempt to create a 64-bit successor to the x86, a
+role that went to AMD's x86-64 design instead.  In 1994, Intel partnered with
+HP to produce a successor to both x86 and HP's PA-RISC, with a new instruction
+set ("ia64") fundamentally different from both.  To support software written
+for the older processors, the designers included a complete implementation of
+each, because the new chip was already so big and complex that including _two_
+entire previous processors wasn't a significant increase to either.  (If this
+sounds unlikely to end well...)</p>
+
+<p>The result was a late, slow, inefficient chip that was difficult to
+manufacture, more expensive than available alternatives, difficult to write
+efficient compilers for, quickly nicknamed "Itanic" and essentially ignored by
+the market.  (This was remarkably similar to Intel's earlier
+<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432>i432 project</a>,
+a 1970's attempt to jump straight from the 8 bit 8080 to a
+32-bit processor which also resulted resulted in a slow, late, overcomplicated
+and overpriced design which the industry ignored.  The i432 was finally killed
+off by the arrival of the 80286, which outperformed it by a factor of four.
+History does repeat itself.)</p>
+
+<p>For comparison purposes, the
+<a href=http://www.failuremag.com/arch_history_edsel.html>Ford Edsel</a> sold
+64,000 units in its first year.  Itanium took over four years to sell that
+many:
+only <a href=http://news.com.com/2100-1001-276880.html?tag=nl>500 units in
+2001</a>, <a href=http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7983>3,500 in 2002</a>,
+and around
+<a href=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/28/itanium_04_sales/>19,000 in
+2003 and 30,000 in 2004</a>.  In 2005, x86-64 systems emerged as the new
+64-bit PC standard, at which point Dell and IBM discontinued their Itanium
+servers and HP discontinued its Itanium workstations.</p>
+
+<p>To give a <a href=http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/19/197211/press/Q12007EarningsRelease.pdf>sense of perspective</a>, in the first quarter of
+2007, the licensees of ARM Inc. shipped 724 million ARM processors.  (In one
+quarter, not a full year.) In the third quarter of 2007, the PC market shipped
+<a href=http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9825843-7.html>http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9825843-7.html>68.1 million</a> systems (mostly x86-64).
+Over in <a href=http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/Game_Consoles_Wars:_Xbox_360_vs._PS3_vs._Wii>PowerPC land</a>,
+from their launch through August 2007 the Wii had sold 9 million units, Xbox
+360 8.9 million, and Playstation 3 3.7 million (all three PowerPC based).
+Shipments of
+<a href=http://www.mdronline.com/publications/epw/issues/epw_31.html>many other
+interesting processor families</a> each number in the millions of units
+annually</a>.  The Itanium's cumulative total of 0.05 million
+in its first four years combined doesn't even show up on the same graph.</p>
+
+<p>The history of Itanium through 2003 was extensively detailed
+<a href=http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween9.html#itanium>here</a>.
+A more recent obituary for the chip is zdnet's
+<a href=http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-5984747.html>Itanium: A cautionary
+tale</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Despite the Itanium's failure to gain any marketplace traction
+(and <a href=http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2003/02/24/linus-torvalds-itanium-threw-out-all-the-good-parts-of-the-x86>Linus Torvalds'
+personal disdain for the chip</a>, the billions
+of dollars poured into Itanium resulted in lots of corporate engineers assigned
+to developing extensive Linux support for this virtually nonexistent hardware.
+But despite a documented instruction set, no open source emulators run Itanium
+code due to lack of interest.  (HP does offer a binary-only Itanium
+emulator called
+<a href=http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/linux/ski/download.php>SKI</a>, last
+updated in 2004.)</p>
+
+<p>Silicon Graphics still produces Itanium systems.  HP no longer produces
+Itanium workstations, but offers some Itanium servers.  Intel still spends
+money on it.</p>
+
+<h2><a href="#6.1.4" name="m68knommu">6.1.4 m68knommu</a></h2>
+<span id="m68knommu">
+<p>The most popular nommu 68k variant is Coldfire, which uses a subset of the
+68k instruction set and has no memory management unit.  Coldfire is currently
+used in a small number of high volume devices.  (I.E. Coldfire isn't used in
+many different products, but the products it's used in are produced in high
+volume.)</p>
+
+<p><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-130-145.pdf>Running Linux on a DSP: Exploiting the Computational Resources of a programmable DSP Micro-Processor with uClinux</a> (OLS 2002)</p>
+<h2><a href="#6.1.5" name="mips">6.1.5 mips</a></h2>
+<span id="mips">
+<p>Mips is probably the main competitor to ARM.  One advantage of MIPS is its
+availability as a FPGA program, allowing easy prototyping of custom
+hardware.</p>
+
+<p>SGI produced primarily MIPS systems back in the Irix days.  Sony's
+Playstation 2, and PSP are MIPS based, as are some Tivo and Linksys devices.</p>
+
+<p><a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_architecture>MIPS architecture</a></a>
+<p><a href=http://linux-mips.org>The Linux/MIPS web page</a></p>
+
+<h2><a href="#6.1.6" name="parisc">6.1.6 parisc</a></h2>
+<span id="parisc">
+<p>The PA-RISC is from Hewlett Packard.  It was scheduled to be discontinued in
+favor of the Itanium, but the failure of ia64 led to a restart of
+PA-RISC development.</p>
+
+  <a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-183-190.pdf>Porting Drivers to HP ZX1</a>
+<h2><a href="#6.1.7" name="powerpc">6.1.7 powerpc</a></h2>
+<span id="powerpc">
+<p>The PowerPC was created in the early 90's by a parnership between IBM,
+Apple, and Motorola.  Apple switched to x86-64 in 2005 and Motorola spun off
+its processor division as Freescale (which now also manufactures Coldfire and
+ARM processors).  But IBM is still strongly behind PowerPC, and the various
+users of PowerPC formed a <a href=http://powerpc.org>consortium</a> to
+promote and develop it.</p>
+
+<p>PowerPC is commonly used in high volume set-top boxes and game consoles
+such as the PlayStation 3, Xbox and Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii.  PowerPC
+is the third most common processor type in the
+<a href=http://top500.org>Top 500</a> supercomputers list, and was used in
+older cell phones (before Motorola spun off Freescale).</p>
+
+<p>The most interesting recent PowerPC development is the <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_microprocessor>Cell processor</a>,
+which combines a PowerPC core with 8 DSP-like "synergistic processing
+units" which can offload compute-intensive tasks like 3D acceleration,
+compression, encryption, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>The PowerPC 7xx is the "386" of PowerPC systems, meaing most modern PowerPC
+processors can run code compiled fro PowerPC 7xx (although such older code
+may not take full advantage of the new chip's capabilities, especially
+with regard to performance).  The PowerPC family also has
+<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_970>64-bit variants</a> (an
+early version of which Apple marketed as the "G5") that can still run 32-bit
+PowerPC code.</p>
+
+<p>The main exceptions to 7xx compatability are two embedded subsets of the
+PowerPC, which were separately developed by IBM (the 4xx series) and Motorola
+(the 8xx series) for use in low power devices.  These are stripped down PowerPC
+processors in roughly the same way Coldfire was a stripped down 68k:
+instructions were removed from the architecture to get the transistor count
+down, and thus code must be recompiled to avoid using those instructions.
+Unfortunately, the two vendors chose a different subset of the PowerPC
+instruction set, so code compiled for 4xx won't run on 8xx, and vice versa.</p>
+
+<p>The 4xx line was purchased by <a href=http://www.amcc.com/Embedded/>AMCC</a>
+(which has the most annoying website design ever, click one of the tabs to
+get it to STOP MOVING).  Freescale mostly seems to have lost interest in the
+8xx now that Motorola has switched its' cell phones to arm, but information
+is <a href=http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=0162468rH3bTdGJk194204>still available</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The Linux PowerPC developers hang out on the #mklinux channel on
+irc.freenode.net.</p>
+
+  <a href=ols/2001/iseries.pdf>The Linux Kernel on iSeries</a> (OLS 2001)
+  <a href=ols/2001/ppc64.pdf>PowerPC 64-bit Kernel Internals</a> (OLS 2001)
+  <a href=http://perso.magic.fr/l_indien/qemu-ppc/PowerPC_ref/PowerPC_ref.html>PowerPC implementation reference for QEMU</a>
+<h2><a href="#6.1.8" name="ppc">6.1.8 ppc</a></h2>
+<span id="ppc">
+<p>The "ppc" architecture is obsolete, and
+<a href="Documentation/feature-removal-schedule.txt">scheduled for removal
+in June 2008</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time, ARCH=ppc was for 32-bit PowerPC processors (7xx and up),
+and ARCH=powerpc was for 64-bit (970/G5 and up), but the two architectures were
+merged together and support for most boards has since been ported over to
+powerpc.  If you care about any of the remaining boards, bug the powerpc
+maintainers.</p>
+
+<p>Note that ARCH=ppc does not support newer features like "make
+headers_install", but ARCH=powerpc does.</p>
+<h2><a href="#6.1.9" name="um">6.1.9 um</a></h2>
+<span id="um">
+<p>User Mode Linux is a port of Linux to run as a userspace program.  Instead
+of talking to the hardware, it makes system calls to the C library.  Instead
+of using a memory managment unit it makes clever use of mmap.</p>
+
+<p>UML is sort of like an emulator: it can run Linux programs under itself
+(its processes show up as threads to the host system).  It's sometimes used
+as a superior "fakeroot", and sometimes used to provide an emulated system
+for honeypots or shared hosting services.  It's an excellent tool for
+learning and debugging the Linux kernel, because you can use all the normal
+userspace debugging techniques, up to and including putting "printf()"
+statements into the source code to see what it's doing.  (It's great for
+developing things like filesystems, not so good for device drivers.)</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href=ols/2001/uml.pdf>User-Mode Linux</a> (OLS 2001)</li>
+<li><a href=ols/2002/ols2002-pages-107-116.pdf>Making Linux Safe for Virtual Machines</a> (OLS 2002)</li>
+<li><a href=http://landley.net/writing/docs/UML.html>User Mode Linux HOWTO</a></li>
+</ul>
+<h2><a href="#6.1.10" name="x86_64">6.1.10 x86_64</a></h2>
+<span id="x86_64">
+<p><a href=http://x86-64.org>x86-64</a> is the 64-bit successor to x86, and
+the new dominant PC processor.  Essentially all current PCs are now shipping
+with x86-64 processors, including traditionally non-x86 architectures such
+as Apple's Macintosh and Sun's servers.</p>
+
+
+  <a href=ols/2001/x86-64.pdf>Porting Linux to x86-64</a> (OLS 2001)
+</pre>
+  <h2><a href="#6.2" name="DMA,_IRQ,_MMU_(mmap),_IOMMU,_port_I_O">6.2 DMA, IRQ, MMU (mmap), IOMMU, port I/O</a></h2>
+<span id="DMA, IRQ, MMU (mmap), IOMMU, port I/O">
+  <h2><a href="#6.3" name="Busses">6.3 Busses</a></h2>
+<span id="Busses">
+    <h2><a href="#6.3.1" name="PCI,_USB">6.3.1 PCI, USB</a></h2>
+<span id="PCI, USB">
+http://www.linux-usb.org/USB-guide/book1.html
+Documentation/usb
+<p><a href=ols/2001/pci.pdf>PCIComm: A Linux Device Driver for Communication over PCI Shared Memory</a> (OLS 2001)</p>
+<p><a href=ols/2001/powertweak.pdf>Linux performance tuning using Powertweak</a> (OLS 2001)</p>
+    <h2><a href="#7" name="Following_Linux_development">7 Following Linux development</a></h2>
+<span id="Following Linux development">
+  <h2><a href="#7.1" name="Distibutions">7.1 Distibutions</a></h2>
+<span id="Distibutions">
+  <h2><a href="#7.2" name="Releases">7.2 Releases</a></h2>
+<span id="Releases">
+    <h2><a href="#7.2.1" name="Source_control">7.2.1 Source control</a></h2>
+<span id="Source control">
+
+<p>Linux releases from 0.0.1 through 2.4.x used no source control system, just
+release tarballs.  Releases 2.5.0 through 2.6.12-rc2 used a proprietary
+source control system called BitKeeper.  Releases 2.6.12-rc2 through the
+present use a source control system called git.</p>
+
+<p>Early Linux development didn't use source control.  Instead Linus would
+apply patches to his copy of the source, and periodically release tarball
+snapshots of his development tree with a hand-edited changelog file noting who
+contributed each patch he'd applied.  Most of these patches were posted to the
+Linux Kernel Mailing List, and with a little effort could be fished out of the
+mailing list archives.</p>
+
+<p>This worked for many years, but didn't scale as Linux development grew.
+Eventually the issue came to a head [link], and after some discussion Linus
+decided to use a proprietary distributed source control system called
+BitKeeper for the 2.5 development branch.  Linux releases v2.5.0 through
+v2.6.12-rc2 were put out this way.</p>
+
+<p>Linux development no longer uses BitKeeper, due to the sudden
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/130746/>expiration of the
+"Don't piss off Larry license"</a> under which BitKeeper was made available
+to the Linux community (<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/132938/>more here</a>).
+This prompted Linus to take a month off from Linux development to write his own
+distributed source control system, git.  This is why the current source control
+history in the main git development repository goes back to 2.6.12-rc2.
+(The revision history from the BitKeeper era was later
+<a href=http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/tglx/history.git;a=summary>converted to git</a>, but remains separate for historical reasons.)</p>
+
+<p>Linus initially chose BitKeeper because he wanted a distributed source
+control system, and the open source alternatives available at the time were
+all centralized source control systems.</p>
+
+<p>In a distributed source control
+system, every user has a complete copy of the project's entire revision
+history, which they can add their own changes to locally.  A centralized source
+control system requires a single central location, with user accounts to
+control access and either locking the tree or rejecting attempts to apply out
+of date patches.  A distributed source control system is instead designed to
+download and merge changes from many different repositories after they're
+checked in to those other repositories.  The source control system handles
+almost all of this merging automatically, because it can trace the changes in
+each repository back to a common ancestor, and then use three-way merge
+algorithms to better understand the changes.  (Patches don't indicate
+which version they apply to.  A distributed source control system has
+more information avialable to it, and uses that information to automatically
+merge changes more effectively.)</p>
+
+<p>This allows Linux subsystem maintainers to develop
+and test their own local versions, then send changes to Linus in large batches
+(without smearing together the individual patches they committed), and finally
+resync with Linus's repository to get everyone else's changes.  Open source
+development is already distributed, so distributed source control is a better
+fit.  In this development model, Linus's repository serves as a coordination
+point, but not a development bottleneck for anything except putting out
+releases (which come from Linus's repository).</p>
+
+<p>Linus described the appeal of distributed source control, and his reasons
+for developing git, in the Google Video tech talk
+<a href=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2199332044603874737>Linus Torvalds on git</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The linux kernel source is also available as a
+<a href=http://kernel.org/hg/linux-2.6>mercurial repository</a>, another
+popular open source distributed source control system.</p>
+
+<p>This paper still serves as a decent introduction to distributed source
+control: <a href=http://kernel.org/doc/ols/2002/ols2002-pages-197-212.pdf>BitKeeper
+for Kernel Development</a> (OLS 2002, obsolete)</p>
+
+    <h2><a href="#7.3" name="community">7.3 community</a></h2>
+<span id="community">
+<pre>
+  CATB
+  http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html
+  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
+  lwn, kernel traffic, kernelplanet.
+  http://www.kernel.org/faq
+    http://www.kernel.org/kdist/rss.xml
+  git/mercurial
+  Documentation/{CodingStyle,SubmitChecklist}
+  The four layer (developer, maintainer, subsystem, linus) model.
+  Politics
+    Stable API nonsense
+    Why reiser4 not in.
+</pre>
+  <h2><a href="#7.4" name="Submitting_Patches">7.4 Submitting Patches</a></h2>
+<span id="Submitting Patches">
+  <h2><a href="#8" name="Glossary">8 Glossary</a></h2>
+<span id="Glossary">
+</body>
+</html>
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/index.html	Sat Feb 19 21:28:05 2011 -0600
@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+<html>
+<title>Linux Kernel Documentation</title>
+<body>
+
+<h2>Documentation extracted from the Linux kernel and mirrored on the web where
+Google can find it:</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><p><a href=Documentation>Documentation</a> - Text files in the kernel source tarball's Documentation subdirectory.</p></li>
+<li><p><a href=htmldocs>htmldocs</a> - Kernel Documentation maintained in docbook format (output of "make htmldocs").</p></li>
+<li><p><a href=menuconfig>Menuconfig</a> - help text for each kernel configuration option (from kconfig source).</p></li>
+
+<li><p><a href=readme>README</a> various README files scattered around Linux kernel source</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=rfc-linux.html>RFC</a> - List of IETF RFCs referred to by kernel source files.  Links to both the text of the RFC and the source files that refer to it.</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=makehelp.txt>Output of kernel's "make help".</a></p></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2>Standards documents applicable to the Linux kernel</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><p><a href=http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/>Single Unix Specification v4</a> (Also known as Open Group Base Specifications issue 7, and POSIX 2008.  See especially <a href=http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/idx/xsh.html>system interfaces</a>)</p></li>
+
+<li><p>C99 standard (current version of the C programming language): <a href=http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/standards>ISO/IEC C9899 PDF</a>, <a href=http://busybox.net/~landley/c99-draft.html>html</a>, or <a href=http://c0x.coding-guidelines.com/>searchable website</a>.</p></li>
+<li><p><a href=http://www.unix.org/whitepapers/64bit.html>LP64 standard</a> defining the size of char, short, int, and long on 32-bit and 64-bit platforms.  (See also the <a href=http://www.unix.org/version2/whatsnew/lp64_wp.html>rationale</a> for the standard, and the <a href=http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/01/31/363790.aspx>legacy reasons</a> another OS declined to adopt this standard).</p></li>
+
+<li><p><a href=http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/index.shtml>Linux Foundation's specs page</a> (ELF, Dwarf, ABI...)</p></li>
+<li><p><a href="http://www.t10.org/scsi-3.htm">SCSI standards</a></p></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2>Other web pages containing kernel documentation</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><p><a href=ols>Ottawa Linux Symposium papers, split up and indexed by year</a></p></li>
+<li><a href=http://kernel.org/doc/man-pages>Linux man-pages website, includes HTML versions of man pages</a></li>
+<li><p><a href=http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html>Development mailing lists available on kernel.org</a></p></li>
+
+<li><p><a href=http://lwn.net/Kernel/Index/>All Linux Weekly News kernel articles</a> indexed by topic<p></li>
+<li><p><a href=http://www.linuxjournal.com/xstatic/magazine/archives>Linux Journal archives</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=http://twitter.com/kernellog2>H-Online's Kernel-Log</a> (most recent first)</p></li>
+<li><p>Linux Device Drivers book (<a href=http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/>third edition</a>) (<a href=http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/>second edition</a>)</p></li>
+<li><p><a href=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/views/linux/library.jsp>IBM Developerworks Linux Library</a> (also <a href=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linux-kernel/>here</a>)</p></li>
+
+<li><p><a href=http://www.tux.org/lkml/>Linux Kernel Mailing List FAQ</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=http://kernelplanet.org>Kernel Planet (blog aggregator)</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=video.html>A few videos of interest</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=local>Some locally produced docs</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=als1999>Atlanta Linux Showcase CD (1999)</a></p></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2>Translations to other languages</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><p><a href=http://tlktp.sourceforge.net/>Linux Kernel Translation Project</a></p></li>
+
+<li><p><a href=http://kernelnewbies.org/RegionalNewbies>Kernel Newbies regional pages</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=http://www.linux.or.jp/JF/index.html>Japanese</a></p></li>
+<li><p><a href=http://zh-kernel.org/docs>Chinese</a></p></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2>Documentation on memory management</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><p><a href="gorman">Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager</a>, online book by Mel Gorman.</p></li>
+<li><p>What every programmer should know about memory, article series by Ulrich Drepper,
+parts
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/250967/>one</a>,
+
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/252125/>two</a>,
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/253361/>three</a>,
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/254445/>four</a>,
+<a href=http://lwn.net/Articles/255364/>five</a>.
+</p></li>
+<li><p>Ars technica ram guide, article series by Jon "Hannibal" Stokes, parts
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/paedia/r/ram_guide/ram_guide.part1-1.html>one</a>,
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/paedia/r/ram_guide/ram_guide.part1-1.html>two</a>,
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/paedia/r/ram_guide/ram_guide.part3-1.html>three</a>,
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/caching.ars/1>Cacheing</a>,
+
+<a href=http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/bandwidth-latency.ars>Bandwidth and Latency</a>.</p></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2>Miscelaneous</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><p><a href=index-old.html>Old index.</a></p></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Page maintained by Rob Landley, rlandley at parallels dot com.</p>
+</body>
+</html>
+