Introduction

LK (Little Kernel) is a tiny operating system suited for small embedded devices, bootloaders, and other environments where OS primitives like threads, mutexes, and timers are needed, but there’s a desire to keep things small and lightweight. On embedded ARM platforms the core of LK is typically 15-20 KB.

LK is available from https://github.com/littlekernel/lk and is Open Source software, provided under the MIT license.

Who is using LK?

LK is the Android bootloader and is also used in Android Trusted Execution Environment - "Trusty TEE" Operating System.

Newer Android phones have some chance of LK running all the time alongside Linux.

A few ARM SoC manufacturers use LK as their default bootloader such as DragonBoard 410c based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor.

The Fuchsia Operating System’s microkernel, Zircon is based on LK.