Linux Kernel Overview

The standard-system devices come with application processors and memory greater than 128 MiB. OpenHarmony uses the Linux kernel as the base kernel so that appropriate OS kernels can be provided for devices with different resource limitations.

Linux Kernel Versions

• Linux kernel versions are classified into the stable version and long-term support (LTS) version.

• The stable version is released approximately every 3 months to support the latest hardware, improve performance, and fix bugs. Its disadvantage is that the overall maintenance lifespan is short, making long-term stable support unavailable for software.

• The LTS version provides long-term kernel maintenance (in fixing bugs and security vulnerabilities). Generally, the maintenance lifespan is six years. By contrast, non-LTS kernel versions whose maintenance lifespan ranges from six months to two years cannot cover the entire lifespan of their products and may leave the products open to security vulnerabilities. In addition, new features are not added in the LTS version update, which ensures the version stability. Therefore, LTS versions are more suitable for commercial products that pursue stability and security.

OpenHarmony Kernel Versions

OpenHarmony uses Linux LTS versions as its base kernel. Currently, it supports Linux-4.19 and Linux-5.10.