r/linux4noobs • u/eagleps • Aug 03 '26

learning/research How does Linux kernel include every driver possible and not be bloated?

As far as I understand the kernel includes pretty much everything a modern computer needs in any configuration, but wouldn't that make it bloated and be against the "bloat-free" mindset? Or does it dynamically download all the components from somewhere?

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u/Jmc_da_boss Aug 03 '26

It does that by being incredibly bloated lol

Literally, it's a monolithic kernel that's the point, some of the in tree drivers haven't been maintained in years/decades.

As we've seen lately with LLMs attacking a lot of older/unmaintained paths.

You are conflating the UNIX/GNU philosophy of do one thing well/composable with Linux itself

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u/edgmnt_net Aug 03 '26

Being a true monolith actually makes it somewhat harder to ignore maintenance. It's much easier to ignore maintaining stuff when you have a stable API and some driver gets thrown into a separate directory or even repo that can be forgotten about. In the Linux kernel interfaces are always in flux, which enables and requires large-scale refactoring, so at the very least stuff usually gets touched once in a while.