xref: /linux-6.15/Documentation/process/kernel-docs.rst (revision 57937eac)

.. _kernel_docs:

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   periodically retire resources as they become obsolete or outdated; with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: https://kernelnewbies.org/KernelGlossary
      :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: https://sysprog21.github.io/lkmpg/
      :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: **The Linux Memory Manager**

      :Author: Lorenzo Stoakes
      :Publisher: No Starch Press
      :Date: February 2025
      :Pages: 1300
      :ISBN: 978-1718504462
      :Notes: Memory management. Full draft available as early access for
              pre-order, full release scheduled for Fall 2025. See
              https://nostarch.com/linux-memory-manager for further info.

    * 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

.. _ldd3_published:

    * 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: https://elixir.bootlin.com/
      :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: https://lwn.net
      :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: https://linux-mm.org/
      :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: https://www.kernelnewbies.org
      :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: https://subspace.kernel.org
      :URL: https://lore.kernel.org
      :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: https://www.youtube.com/user/thelinuxfoundation
      :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: https://rust-for-linux.com/
      :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: https://cliffle.com/p/dangerust/
      :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: https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/
      :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: https://fasterthanli.me/
      :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: https://google.github.io/comprehensive-rust/
      :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: https://docs.rust-embedded.org/book/
      :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: https://rust-book.cs.brown.edu/
      :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: https://newrustacean.com/
      :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: https://github.com/rust-lang/opsem-team/tree/main
      :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: https://lpc.events/event/18/sessions/186/#20240918
      :Title: Rust for Linux
      :URL: https://lpc.events/event/18/contributions/1912/
      :Title: Journey of a C kernel engineer starting a Rust driver project
      :URL: https://lpc.events/event/18/contributions/1911/
      :Title: Crafting a Linux kernel scheduler that runs in user-space
        using Rust
      :URL: https://lpc.events/event/18/contributions/1723/
      :Title: openHCL: A Linux and Rust based paravisor
      :URL: https://lpc.events/event/18/contributions/1956/
      :Keywords: rust, lpc, presentations.
      :Description: A number of LPC talks related to Rust.

    * Name: **The Rustacean Station Podcast**

      :URL: https://rustacean-station.org/
      :Keywords: rust, podcasts.
      :Description: A community project for creating podcast content for
        the Rust programming language.

-------

This document was originally based on:

 https://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html

and written by Juan-Mariano de Goyeneche