http://www.timesys.com/products/processors/intel/intel-ixp425 page lists some details about intel ixp4xx combo-cpu’s and there are some useful notes as to what kernel config options should be enabled. Timesys uses 2.6.16.10
http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/kernel-boot-process 3rd article – explains how linux kernel boots
http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/how-computers-boot-up 2nd article, the 1st is at http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/motherboard-chipsets-memory-map
http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7995848646.html article explains a few things and post sample code that shows how to instrument x86 boot process
http://tservice.net.ru/~s0mbre/old/?section=projects&item=netchannel Network channel is a protocol agnostic communication channel between hardware and userspace. Basically it allows very fast delivery from network hardware to userspace All protocol processing happens in process’ context.
http://web.mit.edu/ksplice/ new way (hopefully will be mainstream soon) to apply updates to linux kernel"on the fly", i.e w/out need to reboot. The system is more or less a hack at this moment.
https://www.linux-foundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php paper describing kernel development process
http://www.3nity.ru/viewtopic.htm?p=68566&highlight=#68566 how to spread iptables/netfilter load to different cpus: bound device by irq to cpu core
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-cfs/ descriptipn for linux CFS scheduler
http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/263130/d4464a9c3acaf34a/ describes how to use linux kernel RCU mechanism instead of read-write locking