What is the best distro for starting linux kernel development?

[Andreas Platschek]

Hi,

On 11/13/2013 11:25 AM, Mandeep Sandhu wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:40 PM, Naman Shekhar Mishra
> <mishra123.naman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi mentors,
>> I have been studying the Linux kernel for some time and now I am going to
>> try and get my hands hands dirty with the kernel. Can you please tell me
>> what is the best distro for this? I have experience with Gentoo and LFS but
> If you're comfortable with Gentoo then I guess you're ready for kernel
> development! :P (kidding!) The reason I say this is because I heard
> (I've not used Gentoo personally) that you get to build/install all
> packages from scratch before using them! :)
>
> You can also have a look at the popular ones like Ubuntu, Fedora or
> Mint (dunno much about Mint though). They come with good package
> managers and that makes installing stuff easy. So whether you want to
> install eg binutils or a new browser or even the kernel sources, the
> package manager will help you get all the stuff + it's dependencies.
Ack. Use whatever distro _YOU_ like best. The only restrictions are the
minimal requirements of the kernel. You can find them in the source in
Documentation/Changes
They should not be a problem with any newer distro, in example for 3.12
they are:

---<snip>---
Current Minimal Requirements
============================

Upgrade to at *least* these software revisions before thinking you've
encountered a bug!  If you're unsure what version you're currently
running, the suggested command should tell you.

Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally
running a Linux kernel.  Also, not all tools are necessary on all
systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN hardware, for example,
you probably needn't concern yourself with isdn4k-utils.

o  Gnu C                  3.2                     # gcc --version
o  Gnu make               3.80                    # make --version
o  binutils               2.12                    # ld -v
o  util-linux             2.10o                   # fdformat --version
o  module-init-tools      0.9.10                  # depmod -V
o  e2fsprogs              1.41.4                  # e2fsck -V
o  jfsutils               1.1.3                   # fsck.jfs -V
o  reiserfsprogs          3.6.3                   # reiserfsck -V
o  xfsprogs               2.6.0                   # xfs_db -V
o  squashfs-tools         4.0                     # mksquashfs -version
o  btrfs-progs            0.18                    # btrfsck
o  pcmciautils            004                     # pccardctl -V
o  quota-tools            3.09                    # quota -V
o  PPP                    2.4.0                   # pppd --version
o  isdn4k-utils           3.1pre1                 # isdnctrl 2>&1|grep
version
o  nfs-utils              1.0.5                   # showmount --version
o  procps                 3.2.0                   # ps --version
o  oprofile               0.9                     # oprofiled --version
o  udev                   081                     # udevd --version
o  grub                   0.93                    # grub --version ||
grub-install --version
o  mcelog                 0.6                     # mcelog --version
o  iptables               1.4.2                   # iptables -V
---<snap>---

thx,
andi

>
> HTH,
> -mandeep
>
>
>> would they be good if I just want to get involved in  kernel development
>> (and not the maintenance overhead that comes with these distros)? It would
>> be useful for me if you could tell me the distro you use.
>>
>> Thanks and regards,
>> Naman
>>
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