bibliography.md

Sources

Consider reading books on general operating system concepts, as those tend to explain better concepts which are used on Linux as well as other OS.

Linux kernel documentation kind of sucks.

Most function definitions or declarations don't contain any comments, so you really need to have a book in your hands to understand the high level of things.

Free

• git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git

  The source code, the only definitive source.

  Also see the built-in documentation at Documentation/.

  Ways to browse:

  • the most official way is the cgit: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/

  • GitHub mirror https://github.com/torvalds/linux

  • free-electrons

    Has ctag-like hyperlinks in the kernel code.

    Possible alternatives: ctags and grep.

• kernel-mail

  Kernel mailing lists.

  Mostly bleeding edge design decisions.

  linux-kernel: is the highest volume one. TODO: better replies than Stack Overflow?

  linux-newbie: looks like a good one for me

  Web UIs suck: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/90080/how-do-i-search-the-linux-kernel-mailing-list-archives

• Official bug tracker: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/

  Not used by many developers, most stick to the mailing list...

• make htmldoc on the source.

  Generates documentation for the kernel from comments, and puts it under Documentation/DocBook/index.html

  The most useful is under kernel api. Still, this is grossly incomplete.

  The documentation seems to be stored in the .c files mostly rather than on the .h.

  Weirdly the snapshots of htmldoc on kernel.org have some extra functions, check it out: https://www.kernel.org/doc/htmldocs/kernel-api.html

• http://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/Initialization/linux-initialization-4.html

  Good book.

  Above all: hosted on GitHub.

• kernel.org

  kernel.org resources list

  Wiki for some subprojects: https://wiki.kernel.org/

• elinux.com

  Embedded Linux wiki.

  Supported by the Linux kernel.

• kernelnewbies

• Corbet - 2005 - Linux Device Drivers

  Ultimate device driver source.

• Interviews with many kernel devs:

  https://www.linux.com/news/special-feature/linux-developers

  Good getting started info.

Non-free

Books on operating systems in general

• stallings11

Books on the Linux kernel

• bovet05

  Inner workings.

  Reasonable info on x86 hardware.

• love06

  Love - 2006 - Linux kernel development.