Kernel source

• Release tarballs

• Source control: browse online clone with git

• Git howtos: git-bisect howto, interactive tutorial, official documentation

• Unified Linux-kernel git repository, with complete history from 0.0.1 to the present.

• Linux From Scratch (how to build a complete Linux system from source code): read online download.

Documentation extracted from the Linux kernel and mirrored on the web where Google can find it:

• Documentation - Text files in the kernel source tarball's Documentation subdirectory.

• htmldocs - Kernel Documentation maintained in docbook format (output of "make htmldocs").

• Menuconfig - help text for each kernel configuration option (from kconfig source).

• README various README files scattered around Linux kernel source

• RFC - 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.

• Output of kernel's "make help".

Standards documents applicable to the Linux kernel

• Single Unix Specification v4 (Also known as Open Group Base Specifications issue 7, and POSIX 2008. See especially system interfaces. You can download the whole thing.)

• C99 standard (defines the C programming language Linux is implemented in): ISO/IEC C9899 PDF, html, or searchable website.

• LP64 standard defining the size of char, short, int, and long on 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. (See also the rationale for the standard, and the legacy reasons another OS declined to adopt this standard).

• Linux Foundation's specs page (ELF, Dwarf, ABI...)

• Linux Standard base (also downloadable).

• SCSI standards

Videos worth watching

• RSA Animate - The surprising truth about what motivates us

• Clay Shirky (NYU)
  • Institutions vs Collaboration
  • Where do people find the time (part one part two)
• Ben Collins-Sussman and Brian Fitzpatrick (Subversion)
  • How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People
• Martin Michlmayr (Debian)
  • Release Management in Large Free Software Projects
    • I.E. why time-based releases are superior to whenever-it's-finished releases
• Linus Torvalds
  • Why I Created Git
• Greg Kroah-Hartman
  • Linux Device Driver Tutorial (Note: 2.8 gigs, enormous)

Other web pages containing kernel documentation

• Kernel wikis

• Ottawa Linux Symposium papers, split up and indexed by year

• Linux man-pages website, includes HTML versions of man pages

• Development mailing lists available on kernel.org

  • See also the L: entries in MAINTAINERS

• All Linux Weekly News kernel articles indexed by topic

• Linux Journal archives

• Linux kernel changelog (summary of what's new in each version)

• H-Online's Kernel-Log (most recent first)

• Linux Device Drivers book (third edition) (second edition)

• IBM Developerworks Linux Library (also here)

• Linux Kernel Mailing List FAQ

• Kernel Planet (blog aggregator)

• Some locally produced docs

• Atlanta Linux Showcase CD (1999)

Translations to other languages

• Linux Kernel Translation Project

• Kernel Newbies regional pages

• Japanese

• Chinese

Documentation on memory management

• Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager, online book by Mel Gorman.

• What every programmer should know about memory, article series by Ulrich Drepper, parts one, two, three, four, five.

• Ars technica ram guide, article series by Jon "Hannibal" Stokes, parts one, two, three, Cacheing, Bandwidth and Latency.

Miscelaneous

• Old index.

Page maintained by Rob Landley, rob at landley dot net.