Linuxkernel

The Linux kernel is the central part of the Linux operating system family. It serves as the interface between software and hardware, handling process scheduling, memory management, device drivers, networking, and file systems. It is written mainly in C with some assembly and released under the GNU General Public License version 2.

It is a monolithic kernel with loadable modules that runs on many architectures, including x86, x86-64, ARM, ARM64, MIPS, PowerPC, SPARC, and RISC-V. Core subsystems include the Completely Fair Scheduler, memory management with paging and a page cache, virtual memory, I/O, block layers, device drivers, and networking. It supports virtualization via KVM and includes the Linux Security Module framework with optional SELinux or AppArmor profiles.

Development is coordinated by Linus Torvalds as chief maintainer, with many subsystem maintainers guiding reviewers. The project uses Git and kernel.org for hosting. Contributions are submitted via mailing lists and patches are merged into the mainline, yielding new release series. Stable and long-term support branches are maintained by the community and by distribution vendors.

Linux is the foundation of most distributions and many embedded systems. It ships as source code and as prebuilt binaries, with distributions packaging kernels tailored to their hardware. The kernel interacts with user-space tools and libraries and is central to performance, reliability, and security on Linux systems worldwide.

Impact and scope: The Linux kernel powers servers, desktops, mobile devices (such as Android), and many edge devices. It is one of the most widely developed open-source software projects, influencing kernel design in other operating systems and serving as a platform for virtualization, filesystems, and security research.