Index of Further Kernel Documentation¶
The need for a document like this one became apparent in the linux-kernel mailing list as the same questions, asking for pointers to information, appeared again and again.
Fortunately, as more and more people get to GNU/Linux, more and more get interested in the Kernel. But reading the sources is not always enough. It is easy to understand the code, but miss the concepts, the philosophy and design decisions behind this code.
Unfortunately, not many documents are available for beginners to start. And, even if they exist, there was no “well-known” place which kept track of them. These lines try to cover this lack.
PLEASE, if you know any paper not listed here or write a new document, include a reference to it here, following the kernel’s patch submission process. Any corrections, ideas or comments are also welcome.
All documents are cataloged with the following fields: the document’s “Title”, the “Author”/s, the “URL” where they can be found, some “Keywords” helpful when searching for specific topics, and a brief “Description” of the Document.
Note
The documents on each section of this document are ordered by its published date, from the newest to the oldest. The maintainer(s) should periodically retire resources as they become obsolete or outdated; with the exception of foundational books.
Docs at the Linux Kernel tree¶
The Sphinx books should be built with make {htmldocs | pdfdocs | epubdocs}.
Name: linux/Documentation
- Author:
Many.
- Location:
Documentation/
- Keywords:
text files, Sphinx.
- Description:
Documentation that comes with the kernel sources, inside the Documentation directory. Some pages from this document (including this document itself) have been moved there, and might be more up to date than the web version.
On-line docs¶
Title: Linux Kernel Mailing List Glossary
- Author:
various
- URL:
- Date:
rolling version
- Keywords:
glossary, terms, linux-kernel.
- Description:
From the introduction: “This glossary is intended as a brief description of some of the acronyms and terms you may hear during discussion of the Linux kernel”.
Title: The Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide
- Author:
Peter Jay Salzman, Michael Burian, Ori Pomerantz, Bob Mottram, Jim Huang.
- URL:
- Date:
2021
- Keywords:
modules, GPL book, /proc, ioctls, system calls, interrupt handlers .
- Description:
A very nice GPL book on the topic of modules programming. Lots of examples. Currently the new version is being actively maintained at https://github.com/sysprog21/lkmpg.
Published books¶
Title: Practical Linux System Administration: A Guide to Installation, Configuration, and Management, 1st Edition
- Author:
Kenneth Hess
- Publisher:
O’Reilly Media
- Date:
May, 2023
- Pages:
246
- ISBN:
978-1098109035
- Notes:
System administration
Title: Linux Kernel Debugging: Leverage proven tools and advanced techniques to effectively debug Linux kernels and kernel modules
- Author:
Kaiwan N Billimoria
- Publisher:
Packt Publishing Ltd
- Date:
August, 2022
- Pages:
638
- ISBN:
978-1801075039
- Notes:
Debugging book
Title: Linux Kernel Programming: A Comprehensive Guide to Kernel Internals, Writing Kernel Modules, and Kernel Synchronization
- Author:
Kaiwan N Billimoria
- Publisher:
Packt Publishing Ltd
- Date:
March, 2021 (Second Edition published in 2024)
- Pages:
754
- ISBN:
978-1789953435 (Second Edition ISBN is 978-1803232225)
Title: Linux Kernel Programming Part 2 - Char Device Drivers and Kernel Synchronization: Create user-kernel interfaces, work with peripheral I/O, and handle hardware interrupts
- Author:
Kaiwan N Billimoria
- Publisher:
Packt Publishing Ltd
- Date:
March, 2021
- Pages:
452
- ISBN:
978-1801079518
Title: Linux System Programming: Talking Directly to the Kernel and C Library
- Author:
Robert Love
- Publisher:
O’Reilly Media
- Date:
June, 2013
- Pages:
456
- ISBN:
978-1449339531
- Notes:
Foundational book
Title: Linux Kernel Development, 3rd Edition
- Author:
Robert Love
- Publisher:
Addison-Wesley
- Date:
July, 2010
- Pages:
440
- ISBN:
978-0672329463
- Notes:
Foundational book
Title: Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition
- Authors:
Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman
- Publisher:
O’Reilly & Associates
- Date:
2005
- Pages:
636
- ISBN:
0-596-00590-3
- Notes:
Foundational book. Further information in http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive3/ PDF format, URL: https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
Title: The Design of the UNIX Operating System
- Author:
Maurice J. Bach
- Publisher:
Prentice Hall
- Date:
1986
- Pages:
471
- ISBN:
0-13-201757-1
- Notes:
Foundational book
Miscellaneous¶
Name: Cross-Referencing Linux
- URL:
- Keywords:
Browsing source code.
- Description:
Another web-based Linux kernel source code browser. Lots of cross references to variables and functions. You can see where they are defined and where they are used.
Name: Linux Weekly News
- URL:
- Keywords:
latest kernel news.
- Description:
The title says it all. There’s a fixed kernel section summarizing developers’ work, bug fixes, new features and versions produced during the week.
Name: The home page of Linux-MM
- Author:
The Linux-MM team.
- URL:
- Keywords:
memory management, Linux-MM, mm patches, TODO, docs, mailing list.
- Description:
Site devoted to Linux Memory Management development. Memory related patches, HOWTOs, links, mm developers... Don’t miss it if you are interested in memory management development!
Name: Kernel Newbies IRC Channel and Website
- URL:
- Keywords:
IRC, newbies, channel, asking doubts.
- Description:
#kernelnewbies on irc.oftc.net. #kernelnewbies is an IRC network dedicated to the ‘newbie’ kernel hacker. The audience mostly consists of people who are learning about the kernel, working on kernel projects or professional kernel hackers that want to help less seasoned kernel people. #kernelnewbies is on the OFTC IRC Network. Try irc.oftc.net as your server and then /join #kernelnewbies. The kernelnewbies website also hosts articles, documents, FAQs...
Name: linux-kernel mailing list archives and search engines
- URL:
- URL:
- Keywords:
linux-kernel, archives, search.
- Description:
Some of the linux-kernel mailing list archivers. If you have a better/another one, please let me know.
Name: The Linux Foundation YouTube channel
- URL:
- Keywords:
linux, videos, linux-foundation, youtube.
- Description:
The Linux Foundation uploads video recordings of their collaborative events, Linux conferences including LinuxCon, and other original research and content related to Linux and software development.
Rust¶
Title: Rust for Linux
- Author:
various
- URL:
- Date:
rolling version
- Keywords:
glossary, terms, linux-kernel, rust.
- Description:
From the website: “Rust for Linux is the project adding support for the Rust language to the Linux kernel. This website is intended as a hub of links, documentation and resources related to the project”.
Title: Learn Rust the Dangerous Way
- Author:
Cliff L. Biffle
- URL:
- Date:
Accessed Sep 11 2024
- Keywords:
rust, blog.
- Description:
From the website: “LRtDW is a series of articles putting Rust features in context for low-level C programmers who maybe don’t have a formal CS background — the sort of people who work on firmware, game engines, OS kernels, and the like. Basically, people like me.”. It illustrates line-by-line conversions from C to Rust.
Title: The Rust Book
- Author:
Steve Klabnik and Carol Nichols, with contributions from the Rust community
- URL:
- Date:
Accessed Sep 11 2024
- Keywords:
rust, book.
- Description:
From the website: “This book fully embraces the potential of Rust to empower its users. It’s a friendly and approachable text intended to help you level up not just your knowledge of Rust, but also your reach and confidence as a programmer in general. So dive in, get ready to learn—and welcome to the Rust community!”.
Title: Rust for the Polyglot Programmer
- Author:
Ian Jackson
- URL:
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ianmdlvl/rust-polyglot/index.html
- Date:
December 2022
- Keywords:
rust, blog, tooling.
- Description:
From the website: “There are many guides and introductions to Rust. This one is something different: it is intended for the experienced programmer who already knows many other programming languages. I try to be comprehensive enough to be a starting point for any area of Rust, but to avoid going into too much detail except where things are not as you might expect. Also this guide is not entirely free of opinion, including recommendations of libraries (crates), tooling, etc.”.
Title: Fasterthanli.me
- Author:
Amos Wenger
- URL:
- Date:
Accessed Sep 11 2024
- Keywords:
rust, blog, news.
- Description:
From the website: “I make articles and videos about how computers work. My content is long-form, didactic and exploratory — and often an excuse to teach Rust!”.
Title: Comprehensive Rust
- Author:
Android team at Google
- URL:
- Date:
Accessed Sep 13 2024
- Keywords:
rust, blog.
- Description:
From the website: “The course covers the full spectrum of Rust, from basic syntax to advanced topics like generics and error handling”.
Title: The Embedded Rust Book
- Author:
Multiple contributors, mostly Jorge Aparicio
- URL:
- Date:
Accessed Sep 13 2024
- Keywords:
rust, blog.
- Description:
From the website: “An introductory book about using the Rust Programming Language on “Bare Metal” embedded systems, such as Microcontrollers”.
Title: Experiment: Improving the Rust Book
- Author:
Cognitive Engineering Lab at Brown University
- URL:
- Date:
Accessed Sep 22 2024
- Keywords:
rust, blog.
- Description:
From the website: “The goal of this experiment is to evaluate and improve the content of the Rust Book to help people learn Rust more effectively.”.
Title: New Rustacean (podcast)
- Author:
Chris Krycho
- URL:
- Date:
Accessed Sep 22 2024
- Keywords:
rust, podcast.
- Description:
From the website: “This is a podcast about learning the programming language Rust—from scratch! Apart from this spiffy landing page, all the site content is built with Rust’s own documentation tools.”.
Title: Opsem-team (repository)
- Author:
Operational semantics team
- URL:
- Date:
Accessed Sep 22 2024
- Keywords:
rust, repository.
- Description:
From the README: “The opsem team is the successor of the unsafe-code-guidelines working group and responsible for answering many of the difficult questions about the semantics of unsafe Rust”.
Title: You Can’t Spell Trust Without Rust
- Author:
Alexis Beingessner
- URL:
https://repository.library.carleton.ca/downloads/1j92g820w?locale=en
- Date:
2015
- Keywords:
rust, master, thesis.
- Description:
This thesis focuses on Rust’s ownership system, which ensures memory safety by controlling data manipulation and lifetime, while also highlighting its limitations and comparing it to similar systems in Cyclone and C++.
Name: Linux Plumbers (LPC) 2024 Rust presentations
- Title:
Rust microconference
- URL:
- Title:
Rust for Linux
- URL:
- Title:
Journey of a C kernel engineer starting a Rust driver project
- URL:
- Title:
Crafting a Linux kernel scheduler that runs in user-space using Rust
- URL:
- Title:
openHCL: A Linux and Rust based paravisor
- URL:
- Keywords:
rust, lpc, presentations.
- Description:
A number of LPC talks related to Rust.
Name: The Rustacean Station Podcast
- URL:
- Keywords:
rust, podcasts.
- Description:
A community project for creating podcast content for the Rust programming language.
This document was originally based on:
and written by Juan-Mariano de Goyeneche