How is the Linux kernel tested?

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The Linux kernel has a heavy emphasis on community testing.

Typically, any developer will test their own code before submitting, and quite often they will be using a development version of the kernel from Linus, or one of the other unstable/development trees for a project relevant to their work. This means they are often testing both their changes and other people’s changes.

There tends not to be much in the way of formal test plans, but extra testing may be asked for before features are merged into upstream trees.

As Dean pointed out, there’s also some automated testing: The Linux Test Project and the kernel Autotest (good overview).

Developers will often also write automated tests targeted to test their change, but I’m not sure there’s a (often used) mechanism to centrally collect these ad hoc tests.

It depends a lot on which area of the kernel is being changed of course – the testing you’d do for a new network driver is quite different to the testing you’d do when replacing the core scheduling algorithm.

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