Original author(s) | Linus Torvalds |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Community contributors Linus Torvalds |
Initial release | 0.02 (5 October 1991 | )
Stable release | 6.9.1[2]
/ 17 May 2024 |
Repository | |
Written in | C (C11 since 5.18, C89 before),[3] Rust (since 6.1),[4] Assembly language |
Available in | English |
License | GPL-2.0-only with Linux-syscall-note[5][6][7][a] |
Website | kernel |
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source,[11]: 4 monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU operating system, which was written to be a free (libre) replacement for Unix.
Linux is provided under the GNU General Public License version 2 although it contains files under other compatible licenses.[10]
Since the late 1990s, it has been included in many operating system distributions, many of which are called Linux. A notable Linux kernel operating system is Android which is used in many mobile and embedded devices.
The kernel has been tailored for a wide variety of computer hardware.[12] It can be tailored to some extent via build-time commands and configuration. It can also be tailored by modifying the source code.[13][14][15] Privileged users can fine-tune kernel parameters at runtime.[16][17][18]
Most of the kernel code is written in C as supported by the GNU compiler collection (GCC) which has extensions beyond standard C. [11]: 18 [19] The code also contains assembly code for architecture-specific logic such as optimizing memory use and task execution. [11]: 379–380
Development discussions take place on the Linux kernel mailing list (LKML).
Changes are tracked using the version control system git, also originally authored by Torvalds.
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