Linux Kernel Documentation (original) (raw)

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

• <html/latest> - Kernel Documentation (mainline)
• <html/next> - Kernel Documentation (linux-next)
• README various README files scattered around Linux kernel source
• 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)
• C99 standard (current version of the C programming language): 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...)
• SCSI standards

Videos worth watching

• 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

Other web pages containing kernel documentation

• 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

Translations to other languages

• Linux Kernel Translation Project
• Kernel Newbies regional pages

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

If you have any questions or concerns, please email helpdesk at kernel dot org.