The kernel source code is now available on your system! Cool, let's take a quick look at it:
Figure 2.3 – The root of the 5.4 Linux kernel source tree
Great! How big is it? A quick du -m . in the root of the kernel source tree reveals that this particular kernel source tree (recall, it's version 5.4) is a little over 1,000 MB in size – almost a gigabyte!
FYI, the Linux kernel has grown to be big and is getting bigger in terms of Source Lines Of Code (SLOCs). Current estimates are well over 20 million SLOCs. Of course, do realize that not all of this code will get compiled when building a kernel.
How do we know which version exactly of the Linux kernel this code is by just looking at the source? That's easy, one quick way is to just check out the first few lines of the project's Makefile. Incidentally, the kernel uses Makefile's all over the place; most directories have one. We...
