Re: Learning kernel programming with netbsd

["Michael Litchard" <michael%schmong.org@localhost>]

Ah yes, I was told that the tcp/ip stack was the place to go for beginners,
as that was the subsytem most resembling an application.
So, yes, the tcp/ip stack is what I am most interested in.
I'll take a look at some projects.
And make sure that I understand each and every line of output from dmesg.

Michael Litchard
On 6/28/08, Jean-Yves Migeon <jean-yves.migeon%espci.fr@localhost> wrote:
> Michael Litchard wrote:
>
> > The end goal here is to start making contributions to -current.
> > Here's where I am at now.
> > I have done some x86,RISC (using SPIM) and AVR assembler programming.
> > I know C, and how to construct the data structures typically discussed
> > in a first data structures class.
> > so, given that, would anyone be willing to give me a series of tasks
> > that will prepare me to meet my goal?
> >
> >
>  Hi, and welcome :)
>
>  I do not know if there's a typical/recommended way to start hacking in
> current. All I could do to help is giving you some pointers, explaining how
> I managed to dive into source code without being lost from the start.
>
>  Note that this is the way I did it, it may or may not suit you.
>
>  I started some time ago (a year and half) by hacking for my school some
> kind of multicast client/server, which implemented some features of TCP
> (mostly an equivalent for ACK, but a bit more adapted for multicast
> packets). The project did not meet the deadlines, but I managed to get some
> real understanding of how a system behaves, from a userland PoV.
>
>  Then I started reading McKuisck's book (I got the age old edition (4.4BSD)
> from a friend, today's edition goes around freebsd), to get a better
> understanding of the "kernel" part of the OS.
>
>  Today's *BSD (free, net, open and dragonfly) tend to differ more and more
> in their implementations. Basically, I got the needed knowledge from
> McKusick's book, and kept reading netbsd internals and documentation (
> http://www.netbsd.org/docs/ ) to see the details from NetBSD's PoV (some
> parts differ greatly, especially on everything which is virtual memory
> related).
>
>  Google and mailing lists are of help too, especially if you are lost.
>
>  Now, for everything current related: my advice would be to pick up some
> project you would like to work on (or propose one yourself, if you know
> where you are heading). See
> http://www.netbsd.org/contrib/projects.html for a list.
> Contact the list or the guy in charge, and say that you would like to work
> on it. He should give you the good pointers, right from the start.
>
>  Hope that it helps.
>
>  Cheers,
>
>  --
>  Jean-Yves Migeon
>  jean-yves.migeon%espci.fr@localhost
>
>
>