It started as a two-day conference in 1994, when Linux was in the early stages of development, and by 2003 had become a four-day event.
The focus of Linux-Kongress was development topics, either in kernel or user space.
Speakers at the conference included kernel developers like Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Theodore Ts'o, Rusty Russell, James Bottomley, user space developers like Kalle Dalheimer and Miguel de Icaza, and open source advocates like Eric S. Raymond and Jon Hall.
In 2000 and 2001 there were several multi-day workshops sponsored by the German Ministry of Science and Education that preceded the conference.
In 2011, GUUG decided not to hold a Linux Kongress, and instead focus its resources on LinuxCon Europe.