How the heck do I get started?

How the heck do I get started?

[Someone Something]

Hello everyone,

I am a pretty so so C programmer (I've written small networked stuff,
a simple game engine, GUI tools etc.), I just do programming as a
hobby and I'm a middle school student. I am interested in low level
programming and I dabble in assembly, so, I downloaded the latest
kernel source and the sheer size of it just blows my mind. How should
I get started hacking on it? Writing modules, or just browsing through
the code and trying to understand it? Any books you guys recommend?
I'm pretty sure that you're sick and tired of these newb questions,
so, I actually did some research, and I do have a few concrete
questions.
1) Does the linux kernel use pages AND segments? Or just one of them?
If its pages, how does it deal with the wasted memory at the end of
each page? Very small pages?
2) I looked at the 0.01 kernel and it has this weird mix of nasm and
gas syntax for its assembly. Why's that?
3) Is there some kind of tracker for the kernel where it lists bugs and stuff?
4) If I do have a patch I'd like to submit, how would I do this?


Thanks a lot,
Dhaivat

How the heck do I get started?

[Someone Something]

I have joined the kernel newbies mailing list, and I am reading
through the website.
A long term (3 month) goal for me would be to fix up the 0.01 kernel
so it compiles and boots.

If you look at the code in head.s and boot.s, they are written in
different styles, comments are different (| instead of # or ; ), do
have to get rid of them to make it compile correctly?

On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Lisa Milne <lisa@ltmnet.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Aug 2010 13:56:19 -0400
> Someone Something <fordhaivat@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> I am a pretty so so C programmer (I've written small networked stuff,
>> a simple game engine, GUI tools etc.), I just do programming as a
>> hobby and I'm a middle school student. I am interested in low level
>> programming and I dabble in assembly, so, I downloaded the latest
>> kernel source and the sheer size of it just blows my mind. How should
>> I get started hacking on it? Writing modules, or just browsing through
>> the code and trying to understand it? Any books you guys recommend?
>> I'm pretty sure that you're sick and tired of these newb questions,
>> so, I actually did some research, and I do have a few concrete
>> questions.
>> 1) Does the linux kernel use pages AND segments? Or just one of them?
>> If its pages, how does it deal with the wasted memory at the end of
>> each page? Very small pages?
>> 2) I looked at the 0.01 kernel and it has this weird mix of nasm and
>> gas syntax for its assembly. Why's that?
>> 3) Is there some kind of tracker for the kernel where it lists bugs
>> and stuff?
>> 4) If I do have a patch I'd like to submit, how would I do this?
>>
>>
>> Thanks a lot,
>> Dhaivat
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe
>> linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
> Hi Dhaivat,
>
> I'd recommend you join the kernel newbies mailing list, and look around
> their website, it's the best place for getting started with kernel
> development.
>
> http://kernelnewbies.org/MailingList
>
> --
> Lisa Milne <lisa@ltmnet.com>
>

Re: How the heck do I get started?

[Someone Something]

As for Ben's remark on Linux Device Drivers, I don't really have any
hardware that I could write a device driver for, would a USB mouse do,
or is that too complex? I do have a microcontroller or two lying
around, would be feasible to write a software bootloader for them?

On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 3:26 PM, Someone Something <fordhaivat@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have joined the kernel newbies mailing list, and I am reading
> through the website.
> A long term (3 month) goal for me would be to fix up the 0.01 kernel
> so it compiles and boots.
>
> If you look at the code in head.s and boot.s, they are written in
> different styles, comments are different (| instead of # or ; ), do
> have to get rid of them to make it compile correctly?
>
> On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Lisa Milne <lisa@ltmnet.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 21 Aug 2010 13:56:19 -0400
>> Someone Something <fordhaivat@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello everyone,
>>>
>>> I am a pretty so so C programmer (I've written small networked stuff,
>>> a simple game engine, GUI tools etc.), I just do programming as a
>>> hobby and I'm a middle school student. I am interested in low level
>>> programming and I dabble in assembly, so, I downloaded the latest
>>> kernel source and the sheer size of it just blows my mind. How should
>>> I get started hacking on it? Writing modules, or just browsing through
>>> the code and trying to understand it? Any books you guys recommend?
>>> I'm pretty sure that you're sick and tired of these newb questions,
>>> so, I actually did some research, and I do have a few concrete
>>> questions.
>>> 1) Does the linux kernel use pages AND segments? Or just one of them?
>>> If its pages, how does it deal with the wasted memory at the end of
>>> each page? Very small pages?
>>> 2) I looked at the 0.01 kernel and it has this weird mix of nasm and
>>> gas syntax for its assembly. Why's that?
>>> 3) Is there some kind of tracker for the kernel where it lists bugs
>>> and stuff?
>>> 4) If I do have a patch I'd like to submit, how would I do this?
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot,
>>> Dhaivat
>>> --
>>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe
>>> linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>>> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>>
>> Hi Dhaivat,
>>
>> I'd recommend you join the kernel newbies mailing list, and look around
>> their website, it's the best place for getting started with kernel
>> development.
>>
>> http://kernelnewbies.org/MailingList
>>
>> --
>> Lisa Milne <lisa@ltmnet.com>
>>
>

Re: How the heck do I get started?

[Jiri Slaby]

On 08/21/2010 07:56 PM, Someone Something wrote:
> How should
> I get started hacking on it? Writing modules, or just browsing through
> the code and trying to understand it? Any books you guys recommend?

Go through
Documentation/kernel-docs.txt
and
http://kernelnewbies.org/KernelJanitors

> 1) Does the linux kernel use pages AND segments? Or just one of them?

Speaking of x86 32-bit, both. Segments are a whole space 0-4G though, so
fairly unused except some small kind of protection. x86 64-bit removed
segmenting support.

> If its pages, how does it deal with the wasted memory at the end of
> each page? Very small pages?

Which wasted memory? No memory is wasted. If code needs memory <
PAGE_SIZE, one of slab allocator is used.

> 2) I looked at the 0.01 kernel and it has this weird mix of nasm and
> gas syntax for its assembly. Why's that?

0.01 is the ancient history, who cares?

> 3) Is there some kind of tracker for the kernel where it lists bugs and stuff?

bugzilla.kernel.org
And some reports are reported solely to this (or other) ML.

> 4) If I do have a patch I'd like to submit, how would I do this?

See
Documentation/SubmittingPatches

And Documentation/00-INDEX is of interest usually.

hth,
-- 
js