How many lines of code are in the Linux kernel?

Technology hard Data from 2024

Guess before you scroll — the answer is below

Answer in lines. Shorthand like 9m or 1.2bn works.

The answer

40,000,000 lines

Roughly 40M.

The Linux kernel source tree runs to roughly 40 million lines, up from about 10,000 in Linus Torvalds’ first 1991 release. More than half of it is device drivers rather than core kernel code. Around 15,000 developers from 1,500 companies have contributed.

Where this number comes from

Source Linux Foundation / kernel source tree
Figure refers to 2024
Last checked
Unit lines

Numbers move. If this one has drifted from its source, let us know.

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