kernel hack

[Stefan Sperling]

Sorry, this went to -current by accident, but should have gone here...

----- Forwarded message from Stefan Sperling <stsp at stsp.in-berlin.de> -----

Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 18:35:53 +0200
From: Stefan Sperling <stsp at stsp.in-berlin.de>
To: kamal kc <kamal_ckk at yahoo.com>
Cc: freebsd-current at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: kernel hack

On Sun, Sep 25, 2005 at 03:31:51AM -0700, kamal kc wrote:
> does anybody know what is the best way
> to start kernel hack.

IMHO, the best way to start kernel hacking is to invest
an awful lot of time into reading books.

I presume you know C _really_ well already :)
And by really well I also mean you know what is wrong about C!

Any modern book on writing device drivers should be a good starting point.
It does not really matter which UNIX-derivative the book is about.
Hint: There are a lot of these books about Linux.

Read programmer's datasheets, preferably for devices you own,
and learn how to talk to registers from C.
ftp.alsa-project.org has datasheets for sound cards, for example.

Make sure you also learn about multi-threading (mutexes, semaphores etc).
A lot of kernels are multi-threaded these days.

A very good overview of the FreeBSD kernel is given in "The Design
and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System", by Mr. McKusick
and Mr. Neville-Neil. Read all of it. Having learned about drivers
and multi-threading beforehand helps a lot.

> Any references to any web page would 
> be appreciated

Get books, it's worth it! You really don't want to read this much
material on your monitor! (Unless you have a 28" TFT of course ;).
Plus books are often much better written, easier to understand,
and a lot more detailed than tutorials on the web.

http://www.NetBSD.org/Documentation also has an interesting kernel
section to get you started before your books arrive :)

-- 
stefan
http://stsp.in-berlin.de                                 PGP Key: 0xF59D25F0

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
stefan
http://stsp.in-berlin.de                                 PGP Key: 0xF59D25F0