The Lisp kernel is the executable that you run to use Lisp. It doesn't actually contain the entire Lisp implementation; rather, it loads a heap image which contains the specifics—the "library", as it might be called if this was a C program. The kernel also provides runtime support to the heap image, such as garbage collection, memory allocation, exception handling, and the OS interface.

The Lisp kernel file has different names on different platforms. See Table 3.1, “Platform-specific filename conventions”. On all platforms the lisp kernel sources reside in ccl/lisp-kernel.

This section gives directions on how to rebuild the Lisp kernel from its source code. Most Clozure CL users will rarely have to do this. You probably will only need to do it if you are attempting to port Clozure CL to a new architecture or extend or enhance its kernel in some way. As mentioned above, this step happens automatically when you do

? (rebuild-ccl :full t)
      

shell> cd ccl/lisp-kernel/PLATFORM
shell> make