The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU operating system.
Linux is the most successful collaborative software project in history, running on the majority of servers, all of the top 500 supercomputers, billions of Android devices, and countless embedded systems.
The kernel that powers most of the world's servers, phones, and embedded devices. Free, open, monolithic.
✨ Features
Hot-loadable modules on a monolithic core. Drivers, filesystems, network stacks loaded on demand.
Runs on x86, ARM, RISC-V, MIPS, PowerPC, s390, and many more architectures.
Namespaces, cgroups, seccomp, SELinux/AppArmor. Foundation of container security models.
ext4, XFS, Btrfs, ZFS, F2FS, NFS, ceph — choose by workload, swap without reboot.
In-kernel virtual machine for observability, networking, and security. Programmable kernel.
