"The Linux kernel (the core of the Linux operating system) The kernel package contains the Linux kernel (vmlinuz), the core of any Linux operating system. The kernel handles the basic functions of the operating system: memory allocation, process allocation, device input and output, etc."

Have a look at Linux kernel source from a bird's eye view. The Linux kernel is one of the most mysterious open source projects. There is a lot of documentation, however it is still a difficult subject to comprehend. The Interactive Linux kernel map is intended to help people gain an overview of the structure and interactions of the Linux Kernel.

Most Linux users out there, think that their whole system is named just “Linux” (or perhaps the distribution name). For a large number of reasons, which I do not intend to analyze in this post, this is not, and should not be the case.

Being a Keralite, where the high school students study the free software as part of curriculum, and taught to use the word GNU or GNU/Linux for Operating system and Linux for the kernel, and as I had given this link and this link to my friends many time(well, I know about the controversy too), it forces me to ask a silly question:

It was back in December of last year that I talked about the virtualization solution called Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) being added into Linux kernel 2.6.20. The Linux 2.6.21 kernel then improved on the support for paravirtualization with the full featured addition of Virtual Machine Interface (VMI).

A distribution (also called distro) is a member of the Linux family of computer operating systems. They are built around the Linux kernel and consist of a large variety of software. Here’s a list of some of the best general purpose and most popular open and free distributions

The Linux kernel is the core of a large and complex operating system, and while it's huge, it is well organized in terms of subsystems and layers. In this article, you explore the general structure of the Linux kernel and get to know its major subsystems and core interfaces. Where possible, you get links to other IBM articles to help you dig deeper.

Many Linux newbies think that kernel recompilation is inherent and almost necessary thing to do after OS is just installed or some time later. By the following advices I would try to show these fellows in which situations this really makes sense and what to do if one persists

"The GNU/Linux naming controversy is a dispute among members of the free and open source software community relating to the normative branding of the computer operating systems commonly referred to as Linux.

GNU/Linux is the term promoted by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), its founder Richard Stallman, and its supporters, for operating systems that include GNU software and the Linux kernel.[1] The FSF argues for the term GNU/Linux because GNU was a longstanding project to develop a free operating system, of which the kernel was the last missing piece..."