Some existing links with information about different documents describing Linux Kernel. Information here is not guaranteed to be correct or up to date. Please add any documents you find useful. If the document is about a particular subsystem (e.g. memory, scheduler, etc), please add it to the subsystems page instead.
Local Pages By Subject
Collection of online docs
http://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html
- Index of Documentation for People Interested in Writing and/or Understanding the Linux Kernel.
- The Docbooks of the Linux-Kernel as PDF
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
- The latest Docbooks of the Linux-Kernel as HTML
Articles
WritingPortableDrivers by Greg KH.
- How to write portable device drivers.
/DebugWithoutPrintk Printing debug info without printk by Keith Owens.
- Directly renders to screen bypassing limitations of printk (such as early in the boot sequence)
- The why and how of merging code into the upstream kernel.
ABI explanation of ELF format
DocumentationRepository links to some documentation
EmbeddedKernel how to set up an embedded kernel
WorkstationKernel how to set up a workstation kernel
Emulators links to emulators that are useful for kernel development
KernelExtensions about kernel extensions
KernelHacking-HOWTO/Introduction site about kernel hacking
Presentations
/HighAvailability High Availability talk by Marcelo Tosatti
- IRC talk on high availability issues
A number of good dead tree books are available, covering Linux 2.4 and Linux 2.6, as well as particular kernel subsystems. There also exist a number of generic programming references which are particularly useful from a kernel programming viewpoint. This page contains references to these and other texts along with their corresponding ISBN and publisher details. Click on a book for reader feedback and reviews.
Up-to-date books
Essential Linux Device Drivers by Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran see http://www.pearson.ch/Informatik/PrenticeHall/1471/9780132396554/Essential-Linux-Device-Drivers.aspx
Linux Kernel in a Nutshell by Greg Kroah-Hartman, http://www.kroah.com/lkn/, online: html
- about configuring, building, installing, upgrading the kernel
Linux Device Drivers 3rd Edition, 2005, by Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman, O'Reilly Reference, online: pdf ,html
This book is a must read for device driver writing, and more generally, a good understanding of the Linux kernel subsystems involved with device driver writing. Topics such as building modules, debugging techniques, character device drivers, block device drivers, network device drivers, PCI subsystem, USB subsystem, concurrency and race conditions, time and memory management are covered by this book.
Linux Kernel Development 2nd Edition, by Robert Love (Novell Press, ISBN : 0-672-32720-1) see Novell Press Reference
This book is more general than Linux Device Drivers, and covers more parts of the kernel: scheduling, virtual memory management, etc.
Understanding The Linux Kernel 3rd Edition (O'Reilly and associates. ISBN: 0-596-00565-2)
This book is more general than Linux Device Drivers, and covers more parts of the kernel: scheduling, virtual memory management, etc.
Understanding The Linux Virtual Memory Manager, by Mel Gorman (Prentice Hall, ISBN 0131453483)
available online, see Understand The Linux Virtual Memory Manager, online
- This book is specifically dedicated to the virtual memory manager of the Linux kernel, and so goes into deep details about the internals of this important but complex subsystem of the kernel. It clearly is a must read for the ones interested in memory management.
Porting device drivers to 2.6, by Jonathan Corbet
available online, see Driver Porting, on LWN
- Not really a book, but it is so complete and interesting that it can be considered as such.
Understanding Linux Network Internals 1st Edition, 2005 (O'Reilly, ISBN 0-596-00255-6)
- covers linux kernel 2.6
see LWN.net review and Amazon.com reviews
The Linux Kernel Primer: A Top-Down Approach for x86 and PowerPC Architectures, by Claudia Salzberg Rodriguez, Gordon Fischer, Steven Smolski (Prentice Hall PTR, 2005/7/19)
- Covers 2.6 with a focus on i386 and PPC architectures
- Code walkthrough
Older books
LinuxDeviceDrivers 2nd Edition (O\'Reilly and associates. ISBN: 0-596-00008-1)
- covers linux kernel 2.4
also available in electronic form, see Linux Device Drivers 2 online
UnderstandingTheLinuxKernel 2nd Edition (O\'Reilly and associates. ISBN: 0-596-00213-0) see O\'Reilly Reference
- covers linux kernel 2.4
External links
Wikipedia article about the Linux kernel - some history and background
Anatomy of the Linux kernel - short and valuable introduction to internals of the kernel
Interactive Linux Kernel Map and poster - Have a look at Linux kernel source from a bird's eye view.
Linux Cross Reference - browse the source online
LinGrok - another cross reference of development git trees
explore more documentation at Linux Technology Reference
http://lkml.org/ - the linux-kernel mailing list archives
From basic to advanced Linux Kernel articles (outdated) http://whatisthekernel.blogspot.com/