Book recommendations

Book recommendations

[ed]

Hello,

I am looking to get involved in kernel development, maybe start first
with looking at very minor bugs effecting my local system etc.

First I would like some advice on choosing reading material, has anyone
any good advice? I have previously read Unix Internals - Pate, but this
is not deep enough and closer to SCO than linux.

-- 
Regards, Ed http://www.usenix.org.uk
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g

Re: Book recommendations

[Michal Piotrowski]

Hi,

On 24/12/05, ed <ed@ednevitible.co.uk> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am looking to get involved in kernel development, maybe start first
> with looking at very minor bugs effecting my local system etc.
>
> First I would like some advice on choosing reading material, has anyone
> any good advice? I have previously read Unix Internals - Pate, but this
> is not deep enough and closer to SCO than linux.

Linux Kernel Development, 2ed
http://rlove.org/kernel_book/

Linux Device Drivers 3
http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/

http://www.kernelnewbies.org/

Regards,
Michal Piotrowski

Re: Book recommendations

[Steven Rostedt]

On Fri, 2005-12-23 at 23:11 +0000, ed wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am looking to get involved in kernel development, maybe start first
> with looking at very minor bugs effecting my local system etc.
> 
> First I would like some advice on choosing reading material, has anyone
> any good advice? I have previously read Unix Internals - Pate, but this
> is not deep enough and closer to SCO than linux.

Previously, I recommended three books:

http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/kt20050605_312.html#8

and Greg KH wrote up a nice howto:

http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/gregkh/patches.git;a=blob;f=HOWTO

-- Steve

Re: Book recommendations

[Pekka Enberg]

On 12/24/05, Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:
> Previously, I recommended three books:
>
> http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/kt20050605_312.html#8

FWIW, I would recommend all three as well.

                         Pekka

Re: Book recommendations

[ed]

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:33:32 +0200
Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi> wrote:

> On 12/24/05, Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:
> > Previously, I recommended three books:
> >
> > http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/kt20050605_312.html#8
> 
> FWIW, I would recommend all three as well.

Thanks for the advice people, they're on my amazon wish list, I'll see
if the local library can get them in too, might save some money!

Do most people read the books before starting out? Is it something I can
grasp through reading the kernel sources, I'm not shy to reading, just
wondering.

-- 
Regards, Ed http://www.usenix.org.uk
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g

Re: Book recommendations

[Steven Rostedt]

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005, ed wrote:

> On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:33:32 +0200
> Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi> wrote:
>
> > On 12/24/05, Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:
> > > Previously, I recommended three books:
> > >
> > > http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/kt20050605_312.html#8
> >
> > FWIW, I would recommend all three as well.
>
> Thanks for the advice people, they're on my amazon wish list, I'll see
> if the local library can get them in too, might save some money!
>
> Do most people read the books before starting out? Is it something I can
> grasp through reading the kernel sources, I'm not shy to reading, just
> wondering.

The best way is to have the books as you walk through the code.  The books
themselves are not very useful if you are not looking at the code while
you read them. Let me rephrase that, the books are much more helpful when
the code is in front of you, and you can experiment with modules and such,
and do the examples in the books.

Warning, the books are much more static than the kernel.  So some of the
examples in the books will not work with the latest kernels, but if you
find one, it's OK to pop a quick question here, and you might get an
answer for a current example.  But check out the websites listed in the
book first, I believe they have updates.

-- Steve