2009/12/27 Daniel Borkmann <d.borkmann@xxxxxxxxx>: > Hi Nicky, > > Nicky Chorley wrote: >> this. I've bought two books on the subject - "Understanding the Linux >> kernel" and "Linux Kernel Development", but I guess the problem is >> that I can't really follow the source code while I'm reading - there >> aren't enough pointers in the books to the relevant code and it's >> quite difficult to navigate the tree, since it's so big. > > My favourite site for navigating and reading the source is: > > http://lxr.linux.no/ > > I think that should help you a lot with "reading the kernel". Reading > the source is sometimes the better documentation and, of course, you > will have to look things up. Daniel, Thanks very much for the link to the LXR - that looks obviously useful. > If you are interested in device drivers you should try: > > http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/ or > > Essential Linux Device Drivers, by Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran I have a copy of LDD3, though I haven't really started reading it yet. Would you say that Venkateswaran's is better than LDD3 for a beginner, or isn't there much difference? Device drivers are interesting to me and I do have some hardware that I would like to get working under Linux eventually. >> Another thing is that I'm not sure which area of the kernel I'd like >> to contribute to. This is because I don't yet know how it works, so I >> can't make any (informed) decision. This is perhaps not much of a >> problem, I think, since once I learn how things work, I will hopefully >> be able to contribute (learning more as I do so) to an area that needs >> it. > > I think a good idea to start with would be to write a simple kernel > module, e.g. a device driver that lets your keyboard LEDs blink or sth > like that, just to get into it. Another thing which I started with was > to write a very simple VFS filesystem that helped me getting to know how > these things work. Thanks for the advice.. I'll look into that. Actually, speaking of VFS, I have started reading the chapters on that in the books I've got - it seems quite readable right now, so maybe I'll stick to that for a while, before looking at anything else. Kind regards, Nicky -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with "unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ
