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The Linux kernel is a free and open source, [12]: 4 Unix-like kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU operating system (OS) which was created to be a free replacement for Unix.
The Linux kernel is both monolithic and modular, since it can insert and remove loadable kernel modules at runtime. This central component of a computer system is responsible for executing programs. The kernel takes responsibility for deciding at any time which of the many running programs should be allocated to the processor or processors.
Linux distributions that have highly modified kernels — for example, real-time computing kernels — should be listed separately. There are also a wide variety of minor BSD operating systems, many of which can be found at comparison of BSD operating systems .
Linux API, Linux ABI, and in-kernel APIs and ABIs. The Linux kernel provides multiple interfaces to user-space and kernel-mode code that are used for varying purposes and that have varying properties by design. There are two types of application programming interface (API) in the Linux kernel: the "kernel–user space" API; and; the "kernel ...
The term user space (or userland) refers to all code that runs outside the operating system's kernel. [2] User space usually refers to the various programs and libraries that the operating system uses to interact with the kernel: software that performs input/output, manipulates file system objects, application software, etc.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 12 January 2025. Family of Unix-like operating systems This article is about the family of operating systems. For the kernel, see Linux kernel. For other uses, see Linux (disambiguation). Operating system Linux Tux the penguin, the mascot of Linux Developer Community contributors, Linus Torvalds Written ...
The startup function startup_32() for the kernel (also called the swapper or process 0) establishes memory management (paging tables and memory paging), detects the type of CPU and any additional functionality such as floating point capabilities, and then switches to non-architecture specific Linux kernel functionality via a call to start ...
Boot messages of a Linux kernel 2.6.25.17. The basic components of the Linux family of operating systems, which are based on the Linux kernel, the GNU C Library, BusyBox or forks thereof like μClinux and uClibc, have been programmed with a certain level of abstraction in mind.