From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932402AbYEVBI0 (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 May 2008 21:08:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754358AbYEVBIR (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 May 2008 21:08:17 -0400 Received: from saeurebad.de ([85.214.36.134]:49422 "EHLO saeurebad.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751693AbYEVBIQ (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 May 2008 21:08:16 -0400 From: Johannes Weiner To: "Jesper Juhl" Cc: "Jonathan Corbet" , "Cyrill Gorcunov" , rdunlap@xenotime.net, tytso@mit.edu, hch@infradead.org, viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, davem@davemloft.net, "Andrew Morton" Subject: Re: CFD: linux-wanking@vger.kernel.org (was [PATCH] Standard indentation of arguments) References: <9a8748490805211306l50b8411ax4462be18c94ca065@mail.gmail.com> <32279.1211401651@vena.lwn.net> <9a8748490805211337q1e7ceab7i80e4820c46f8171b@mail.gmail.com> <9a8748490805211646s5ef93f8ey43ebbc7746fb1a3b@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 03:07:48 +0200 In-Reply-To: <9a8748490805211646s5ef93f8ey43ebbc7746fb1a3b@mail.gmail.com> (Jesper Juhl's message of "Thu, 22 May 2008 01:46:28 +0200") Message-ID: <87d4nf2ljv.fsf@saeurebad.de> User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Bogosity: Ham, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.000000, version=1.1.3 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi, "Jesper Juhl" writes: > 2. How to find things to work on as a beginner > --- > > Many people new to kernel development have a hard time finding > projects to start out with. The kernel is a large project and it's not > surprising that some people find it hard to work out where to begin. > > A good way to start is by trying to fix some bugs. > > There are plenty of bugs to go around and fixing bugs is a great way > to learn since you need to understand (and thus learn) the code > surrounding the bug in order to fix it properly, so it usually teaches > a lot. Submitting small bug fixes is also a great way to get > comfortable with the patch submission process. > > Finding bugs to fix is easy. Here are some ways to find useful work to > do: > - Run a recent development kernel. If you already know an area that might interest you, use the tree of that subsystem. Otherwise Linus' tree. Or the -mm tree. > - Build a bunch of 'randconfig' kernels and log the output from the > build. Building some 10-20 randconfig kernels usually exposes plenty > of warnings and/or errors during the build. Fixing some of those > should keep you busy for a while. > > - Grep the kernel source for "FIXME", "XXX" and similar comments. They > often describe areas of the code that has known bugs, could be > optimized, needs review etc. Lots of work to do can be found that way. > > - Look through the Kernel Janitors TODO list > (http://kernelnewbies.org/KernelJanitors/Todo) for items of interest, > then try to fix some of the issues on the list. > > - Go through the kernel Bugzilla (http://bugzilla.kernel.org/) and see > if you can fix any of the many bugs filed in it. There's a metric > butload of bugs filed in there that need attention. - Read the mailing list. Again, if you are interested in a specific area, there are also subsystem-related mailing lists, check http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html. Probably needs some rephrasing... Hannes