27 Facts About Mainline Linux

1.

Mainline Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel.

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2.

Mainline Linux is provided under the GNU General Public License version 2 only, but it contains files under other compatible licenses.

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3.

Mainline Linux is deployed on a wide variety of computing systems, such as embedded devices, mobile devices, personal computers, servers, mainframes, and supercomputers.

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4.

Mainline Linux started with a task switcher in Intel 80386 assembly language and a terminal driver.

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5.

At this point, Mainline Linux was able to run Bash, GCC, and some other GNU utilities:.

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6.

The initial success of Mainline Linux was driven by programmers and testers across the world.

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7.

The fact that Linux is a monolithic kernel rather than a microkernel was the topic of a debate between Andrew S Tanenbaum, the creator of MINIX, and Torvalds.

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8.

Mainline Linux used to be maintained without the help of an automated source code management system until, in 2002, development switched to BitKeeper.

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9.

Mainline Linux typically makes use of memory protection and virtual memory and can handle non-uniform memory access, however the project has absorbed µClinux which makes it possible to run Mainline Linux on microcontrollers without virtual memory.

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10.

Mainline Linux is a clone of UNIX, and aims toward POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

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11.

Mainline Linux developers chose not to maintain a stable in-kernel ABI.

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12.

Mainline Linux creates processes by means of the or by the newer system calls.

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13.

Mainline Linux scheduler is modular, in the sense that it enables different scheduling classes and policies.

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14.

Mainline Linux provides both user preemption as well as full kernel preemption.

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15.

PREEMPT_RT code included in mainline Linux provide RT-mutexes, a special kind of Mutex which do not disable preemption and have support for priority inheritance.

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16.

The first part is made up of an asynchronous interrupt service routine that in Mainline Linux is known as the top half, while the second part is carried out by one of three types of the so-called bottom halves .

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17.

Mainline Linux has been ported to various handheld devices such as Apple's iPhone 3G and iPod.

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18.

Mainline Linux offers a wealth of mechanisms to reduce kernel attack surface and improve security which are collectively known as the Mainline Linux Security Modules .

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19.

Developer who wants to change the Mainline Linux kernel starts with developing and testing that change.

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20.

Mainline Linux is written in a special C programming language supported by GCC, a compiler that extends in many ways the C standard, for example using inline sections of code written in the assembly language of the target architecture.

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21.

Since 2010, effort has been underway to build Mainline Linux with Clang, an alternative compiler for the C language; as of 12 April 2014, the official kernel could almost be compiled by Clang.

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22.

LLVMMainline Linux does not aim to fork either Mainline Linux or the LLVM, therefore it is a meta-project composed of patches that are eventually submitted to the upstream projects.

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23.

The -rc development release of the kernel goes through regression tests and once it is judged to be stable by Torvalds and the kernel subsystem maintainers a new Mainline Linux kernel is released and the development process starts all over again.

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24.

Mainline Linux has only solid support for a small subset of the many devices that run Linux.

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25.

Some operating systems developed for mobile phones initially used heavily modified versions of Mainline Linux, including Google Android, Firefox OS, HP webOS, Nokia Maemo and Jolla Sailfish OS.

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26.

In 2010, the Mainline Linux community criticised Google for effectively starting its own kernel tree:.

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27.

Mainline Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, the European Union, and some other countries.

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