Android Kernel Features

List of Kerenl features unique to Android

 * Binder - corba-like IPC
 * used instead of SysV IPC for interprocess communication
 * The Linux version of Binder was originally derived from a project by PalmSource to implement a CORBA-like message-passing or method invocation system. Documentation on that system is at: http://www.angryredplanet.com/~hackbod/openbinder/docs/html/index.html
 * ashmem - Android share memory
 * PMEM - Process memory allocator
 * logger - system logging facility
 * This is the kernel support for the 'logcat' command
 * The kernel driver for the serial devices for logging are in the source code drivers/android/logging.c
 * See Android logger for more information
 * wakelock - used for power management
 * oom handling modifications
 * lowmem notifications
 * alarm

Resources

 * Peter McDermott's excellent description of his work to port Android to the Nokia N810.
 * See http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linux-For-Devices-Articles/Porting-Android-to-a-new-device/
 * Also, see his annotated list of modified and added kernel files, at: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/files/misc/porting-android-to-a-new-device-p3.html


 * Jollen Chen's excellent presentation on system-level Android features, including an overview of kernel features unique to Android: Note: Parts of the presentation are in Chinese
 * http://www.slideshare.net/jollen/android-os-porting-introduction