Jul 20, 2025 · This site is operated by the Linux Kernel Organization, a 501 (c)3 nonprofit corporation, with support from the following sponsors.

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

May 26, 2025 · These kernel releases are not hosted at kernel.org and kernel developers can provide no support for them. It is easy to tell if you are running a distribution kernel.

The following manuals are written for users of the kernel — those who are trying to get it to work optimally on a given system and application developers seeking information on the kernel’s user-space APIs.

The parameters listed below are only valid if certain kernel build options were enabled and if respective hardware is present. The text in square brackets at the beginning of each description states the restrictions within which a parameter is applicable:

For detailed information on how the kernel development process works, see A guide to the Kernel Development Process. Also, read Linux Kernel patch submission checklist for a list of items to check before submitting code.

These manuals contain overall information about how to develop the kernel. The kernel community is quite large, with thousands of developers contributing over the course of a year.

I know what each device is because I’m familiar with the board design, but how does the kernel know what to do with each node? The trick is that the kernel starts at the root of the tree and looks for nodes that have a ‘compatible’ property.

printk() is one of the most widely known functions in the Linux kernel. It’s the standard tool we have for printing messages and usually the most basic way of tracing and debugging.

The maintainers of the various kernel subsystems — and also many kernel subsystem developers — expose their current state of development in source repositories.