Roles for distributions

[Todd Lipcon]

Wow, thanks man- that was quite a bit of advice :) I'll get to reading
some of those things. I've actually written a little patch for the
mouse-button-emulation so it worked the way I like and an ip_masq
module... other than that, I'm kernel-clue-less :) I'll go play with it
right now...

*bong as it goes reboot!*

-Todd

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On Mon, 11 Sep 2000, Dan Foster wrote:

>
> Hot Diggety! Todd Lipcon was rumored to have wrote:
> >
> > Anyway- I am a fairly decent C, C++, and Java programmer. I'd love to be
> > able to contribute to the Linux/PPC effort, however I don't even know
> > where to start. Most of the projects that are large enough to actually
> > need patches to run correctly on PPC are so large that they are inherently
> > intimidating to one not familiar with the source. Do any of you veteran
> > hackers have suggestions for the contribution-newbie? What projects are in
> > the largest need of help, and how can someone who has never seen their
> > source get into the flow of helping out?
>
> Suggestion.... learn the kernel before you tackle arch-specific issues.
>
> Alessandro Rubini's book (_Linux Device Drivers_, wasn't it?) is *excellent*
> for a nice introduction to the kernel from a kernel programmer's perspective.
>
> Also look through any UNIX OS textbooks. I love my copy of the Vahalia book
> because it covers all areas of the UNIX kernel well, and treats us to a case
> by case comparison of how several different UNIX OSes handles it. Digital UNIX,
> AIX, FreeBSD, Solaris, ...
>
> Then, usually very helpful to also just read (and re-read and re-read even
> more) various kernel source files... a couple key directories. It may be
> about 110 MB uncompressed, but sheer majority of that is for device drivers.
> The actual kernel core stuff is *MUCH* smaller.
>
> Try writing some kernel modules, like ones in the Rubini book, even if they're
> 'dummy modules', just so you get a feel for things.
>
> Then when you're feeling more comfortable with the UNIX kernel itself -
> then start digging into all the files in arch/ppc/* as well as read
> linuxppc-dev (or the online archives) to get an appreciation of arch-specific
> issues.
>
> Endianness is one *big* one - lots of times, people in x86 world will release
> drivers that assumes the x86 endianness without thinking to use macros that
> will automagically ensure correct byte order for whatever platform you use.
> This issue bites the other platforms, too.
>
> Then of course, we have the PPC hardware stuff. OpenFirmware docs are *great*
> to read... looking at how the boot loader does it will tell you a thousand
> things about how things actually *happen* in the dark ages before a kernel is
> booted. It's a little work, but you can usually eventually manage to dig up
> hardware tech docs for various chips, so that one knows how to manipulate them.
> For example, the Motorola web site has PDF files on the CPU and the memory
> controller (ie MPC106 aka "Grackle").
>
> IMO, if you can understand a boot loader, you've probably taught yourself a lot
> of the concepts needed to understand hardware at a low level, and how/why
> the kernel is structured the way it does for the arch-specific stuff. It's also
> (IMO) one of the most interesting pieces of software, too.
>
> And so on... lots of stuff that you can indeed do. I've been doing all of
> the above (why dispense advice if one doesn't take one's own advice, eh?) for
> a while now and it's been a rather pleasant, interesting, and fun journey
> into the innards of Linux for the PowerPC family.
>
> -Dan
>
>
>


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