Getting started as a janitor

Getting started as a janitor

[Manuel Mejia]

Hello All,

My name is Manuel. I've been itching to get some more experience
working with a lower level language (C/C++) since I have developed
mainly in higher level languages like PHP, C#, Java, and C++/Qt.I
thought the best way would be to contribute to open source as I use it
all the time. I was wondering if someone out there could take the time
to guide me a bit on how to get started with some of the tasks for
kernel janitors.

--
Manuel Mejia

Re: Getting started as a janitor

[Dan Carpenter]

On 4/22/11, Manuel Mejia <me@manuelmejia.com> wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> My name is Manuel. I've been itching to get some more experience
> working with a lower level language (C/C++) since I have developed
> mainly in higher level languages like PHP, C#, Java, and C++/Qt.I
> thought the best way would be to contribute to open source as I use it
> all the time. I was wondering if someone out there could take the time
> to guide me a bit on how to get started with some of the tasks for
> kernel janitors.
>

Kernel coding isn't really a good place to start learning C.  It's
normally assumed that you are proficient in C already when you
start sending patches.

Mostly these days kernel janitors is just static checker stuff and
auditing code.  Like for example, auditing the error handling for
copy_to/from_user() calls.  The other thing is you could do if you
wanted would be to fix up a staging driver.  But mostly those
patches get sent to the staging list and not to kernel janitors.

regards,
dan carpenter

Re: Getting started as a janitor

[Dan Carpenter]

On 4/22/11, Manuel Mejia <me@manuelmejia.com> wrote:
> That makes sense. So gar, I feel comfortable with C, but need to get a
> better feel for system calls and the like.

There are a couple books on the linux kernel.  Linux Device Drivers
is good and a free download.  Robert Love's book is good.
lwn.net has good information.

>
> Would you happen to have a link to get more info on staging drivers?

http://linuxdriverproject.org/foswiki/bin/view
Look through the mailing list archive to see what people are working on.

> Ultimately, my goal is to contribute towards hardware drivers and display (x
> server) once I gain enough knowledge. Currentfy going to school for computer
> engineering Maybe you have other suggestions based on that? I've been
> looking around for a while, googling, but there isn't a whole lot on how to
> get started (info looks outdated usually) or points to kernel newbies.
>

In the end the mailing lists are the only up to date sources of information.

If you downloaded linux-next and used Smatch to check the code from
3 weeks ago and the code from today and then used the new_bugs.sh
script to show the difference the two runs, you would probably find quite
a few valid bugs.  I haven't been checking Smatch output for a while.

regards,
dan carpenter