Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751276AbaAEOcj (ORCPT ); Sun, 5 Jan 2014 09:32:39 -0500 Received: from mail-qe0-f52.google.com ([209.85.128.52]:65194 "EHLO mail-qe0-f52.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751184AbaAEOci convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Sun, 5 Jan 2014 09:32:38 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: References: <20140104213654.0f0b34f2@neptune.home> From: "Gideon D'souza" Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2014 20:02:17 +0530 Message-ID: Subject: Re: How does a newbie find work? To: Geert Uytterhoeven Cc: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bruno_Pr=E9mont?= , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Thanks so much Geert and Bruno for your replies: >>don't forget to subscribe to the specific mailing lists! Didn't know about this, this link is the right one? http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#cpufreq There isn't a list for the scheduler though? >A better start, and at least as useful is to read and review patches flowing > by that affect your areas of interest, test them and > provide feedback about possible bugs or improvements This is a really good idea, so far though all the patches to me look a little arcane, for things I barely understand. But I will keep looking. If I do find something, lets say a patch to the scheduler or some networking thing, how do you guys really test this out? How to you debug a scheduler? :/ How do I really "See" the system run? Put printk statements here are there? >E.g. one thing I just noticed: while include/linux/compiler-gcc.h provides >shorthands (e.g. "__printf()") for various gcc __attribute__ macros, there >are still many places that don't use the shorthands, cfr. e.g. >"git grep 'attribute.*printf'". Are trivial patches like this really accepted? Regards, Gideon On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 3:02 PM, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: > On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 9:36 PM, Bruno Pr?mont wrote: >>> Is there some simple work a newbie like me can take up? Any maintainer >>> need some grunt work done? Or perhaps someone could suggest a pet >>> project I could try to understand things better? (Should I be learning >>> how to write device drivers?) >>> >>> Things that are very interesting to me so far are the KVM and the Scheduler. >> >> Starting with writing some driver (or improving existing drivers) is one >> option, though that wont get you doing work in relation with the scheduler >> (maybe there is some minor driver-like work for KVM though, don't know). >> >> A better start, and at least as useful is to read and review patches >> flowing by that affect your areas of interest, test them and provide >> feedback about possible bugs or improvements (proposing patches to fix >> those if applicable or even just providing performance data [what >> workloads benefit or suffer from given feature-patches and by how much] >> for things like scheduler changes). >> >> This way you will get to know the development process, maintainers >> and the internals of the kernel in those areas - don't forget to subscribe >> to the specific mailing lists! > > Yep, all very good advices. And while following the above, you will hopefully > notice things that need bug fixes, cleanups, or other work. > > E.g. one thing I just noticed: while include/linux/compiler-gcc.h provides > shorthands (e.g. "__printf()") for various gcc __attribute__ macros, there > are still many places that don't use the shorthands, cfr. e.g. > "git grep 'attribute.*printf'". > > As some of these are in architecture-specific header files, and need build > testing there, this is an opportunity to get some cross-compilers going (you > can download binaries from https://www.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/) as > well. > > Good luck, thanks, and welcome to the team! ;-) > > Gr{oetje,eeting}s, > > Geert > > -- > Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org > > In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But > when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. > -- Linus Torvalds -- 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/