Published Jul 21, 2022
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vmlinux is a statically linked executable file that contains the Linux kernel in one of the object file formats supported by Linux, which includes Executable and Linkable Format (ELF), Common Object File Format (COFF) and a.out.
Traditionally, UNIX platforms called the kernel image /unix. With the
development of virtual memory, kernels that supported this feature were given
the vm- prefix to differentiate them. The name vmlinux is a mutation of
vmunix, while in vmlinuz the letter z at the end denotes that it is compressed
(for example gzipped).