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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/deelerdev/linux/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

The Linux kernel is the core software layer sitting between your hardware and all user-space applications. First released by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and now maintained by thousands of contributors worldwide, it handles everything from CPU scheduling and memory allocation to network I/O and device communication. Whether you are a system administrator tuning a production server, a driver author bringing new hardware to life, or a developer submitting your first patch, this documentation will help you navigate the kernel ecosystem.

Build the Kernel

Clone, configure, compile, and install the Linux kernel from source on your machine.

Build Requirements

Check the minimum toolchain versions and dependencies needed before you build.

Development Process

Understand the kernel’s release cycle, subsystem trees, and how changes flow upstream.

Submit a Patch

Step-by-step guide to formatting, sending, and following up on kernel patches.

Write a Driver

Learn the kernel driver model and write your first character or platform device driver.

Kernel Internals

Explore memory management, networking, filesystems, and synchronization primitives.

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Who is this documentation for?

Start with Building the Kernel to get a working build environment, then read the Development Process to understand how the community operates. The Coding Style and Submitting Patches guides will prepare you for your first contribution.
The Driver Overview explains the kernel driver model. Writing Drivers walks through a complete example covering registration, I/O, and interrupts. See Device Model for the sysfs and power management integration.
Kernel Configuration covers Kconfig options and how to tune your build. Kernel Parameters documents the boot-time command-line flags. Security describes LSMs, seccomp, and kernel hardening. Debugging covers ftrace, perf, and crash analysis.
The Maintainer Guide covers pull request workflows, patch review, and tree management. The Community page lists mailing lists, IRC channels, and Bugzilla.

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Current kernel version

The mainline kernel follows a roughly 9–10 week release cycle driven by Linus Torvalds. Stable and long-term support (LTS) releases are maintained by the stable team at kernel.org.
Always check kernel.org for the latest stable release and active LTS branches before deploying a kernel into production.

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