Need Suggestions

[Daniel.]

2018-07-18 1:39 GMT-03:00 inventsekar <inventsekar at gmail.com>:

> Hi Athul...
> This is my collegemate's writing, ... This will solve all your
> confusions....
>
> ---
>
> The most important quality that you need to inculcate if you want to do
> any kernel space programming is "Patience" (or persistence if you will).
> Though it is a good quality for any large scale project, it is a
> fundamental requirement for kernel programming. It is very easy to see
> progress and make an impact on userspace projects, but even simple changes
> in the kernel core will take a lot of time to get accepted, and will often
> require multiple rewrites. But fear not, as there are plenty of people who
> have conquered this mountain and it is not something to be worried about.
>
> The starting steps will be:
>
> 1) Try to understand how to use git <http://git-scm.com/>. We were (are
> ?) not taught to use a version control system in our college and it is such
> a fundamental thing. So start using git for college assignments and get the
> hang of it.
>
> 2) Start writing a lot of C programs and get experienced with pointers,
> memory allocation, threading. You can start implementing things like Stack,
> Queue, Trees etc. (whatever you study in datastructures) in a simple,
> thread-safe way. Do not focus on how you can visualize these datastructures
> but how you can effectively implement their functionality and thread
> safety. Use pthreads for threading. Do not use any library (like Glib) for
> giving you convenient datastructures (like Strings). Implement each of the
> things on your own. (But when you are writing code for a product, use a
> standard library always instead of re-inventing the wheel)
>
> Write these C programs on Linux and compile using gcc. In our college days
> we were using turboc on windows and I hope things have changed. Use a linux
> distro (fedora <http://fedoraproject.org/>, debian
> <https://www.debian.org/>, openSUSE <http://en.opensuse.org/>, Gentoo
> <https://www.gentoo.org/> etc.) exclusively; Do not use Windows (at least
> for a while) to make yourself aware of the sysadmin, shell-scripting parts
> of linux, which will come in handy.
>
> 3) Grab a (any) book on Operating Systems theory and read it. The dinosaur
> book <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_System_Concepts> by
> Silberschatz et. al. is a good start.
>
> 4) Without hesitation buy, Robert Love's Linux Kernel Programming
> <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0672329468/> book. It is one of the
> best beginner material and start reading it parallel to the OS book. This
> is easier to read than the previous one and more practical. But the
> previous one adds more value and is more theoretical. Handle (3) and (4) in
> parallel without blocking on any of the other activities.
>
I can confirm, this book is GOOOOOOD! Also check LDD3,  it's open and
online available, you may find some of it's authors in this mailist! :-).
http://www.makelinux.net/ldd3/ it's a outdated but it was a very valuable
source to me. You can find the examples updated on the internet.

>
>
> 5) After you are done with (1) and (2), and feel sufficiently confident
> with C and pointers, grab the  linux kernel sources from
> http://git.kernel.org/ and try to build the sources yourself. http://
> kernelnewbies.org/KernelBuild should help. Learn how to install and boot
> with the kernel that you have built.
>
> 6.1) Subscribe to Kernel Newbies mailing list http://kernelnewbies.org/
> MailingList and read every mail, *even* if you do not understand most of
> it.
>
> 6.2) Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLBrBBImJt4
>
> 6.3) Subscribe to http://lwn.net RSS feeds.
>
> After this, you should be able to fix and send any trivial, documentation,
> staging fixes. Once you have done this and get the hang of the process, you
> will know how to send patches for any parts of the kernel.
>
> By this time, you would have found your areas of interest in kernel
> (filesystems, memory management, io scheduler, CPU scheduling etc.). You
> will then have to dig deeper in those particular areas, by:
> a) subscribing to the individual mailing lists (such as fs-devel
> <http://marc.info/?l=linux-fsdevel>, etc.)
> b) reading about the bug reports for the individual component
> c) finding the literature that is relevant for your subsystem (The linux
> memory management book
> <https://www.kernel.org/doc/gorman/pdf/understand.pdf>Mel Gorman, etc).
>
> Three other non-technical things that I would recommend are:
>
> 1) Create a new email address and use that for all your open source
> activities. That way you do not miss any important updates from your
> friends.
>
> 2) Kernel programming will not give you big money in the short and medium
> term (at least in India). If your motivation is not excellence in
> engineering, but becoming popular or rich (it is not wrong btw) then you
> should focus on some other areas of programming (developing apps, websites,
> solving user problems, making meaning etc.).
>
> It will often take months (or even years) before you make a significant
> contribution that is not merely a memory leak or bug fix. Be prepared for
> that. But since you have age, energy, time (once you get married and/or
> have kids you will understand) on your side, it is not that difficult.
>
> Many people try kernel programming and then quit because they do not have
> the patience and perseverance. It may also happen that they have found a
> more interesting technology at its nascent stage (like Distributed
> Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Containers, NLP etc.) It is not wrong
> to quit midway :) Any little time spent on kernel programming will
> immensely benefit you as a programmer even when you are doing user space
> programming. This holds good for not just kernel programming but any
> large-code-base/system programming (like Compilers, glibc, webkit, chrome,
> firefox etc.)
>
> 3) Be more aware of the GSoC community in colleges around you.
>
> All the best.
>
> On Sat 14 Jul, 2018, 9:36 PM Athul Joy, <aathuljjoy333 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear friends, I am new to the Linux kernel development.
>> Can anyone help me how to start my journey in order to build my own
>> kernel?
>> _______________________________________________
>> Kernelnewbies mailing list
>> Kernelnewbies at kernelnewbies.org
>> https://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies
>>
>
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>


-- 
“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. ..."
  Charles Bukowski
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