| 1 | .. _development_conclusion:
|
| 2 |
|
| 3 | For more information
|
| 4 | ====================
|
| 5 |
|
| 6 | There are numerous sources of information on Linux kernel development and
|
| 7 | related topics. First among those will always be the Documentation
|
| 8 | directory found in the kernel source distribution. Start with the
|
| 9 | top-level :ref:`process/howto.rst <process_howto>`; also read
|
| 10 | :ref:`process/submitting-patches.rst <submittingpatches>`. Many internal
|
| 11 | kernel APIs are documented using the kerneldoc mechanism; "make htmldocs"
|
| 12 | or "make pdfdocs" can be used to generate those documents in HTML or PDF
|
| 13 | format (though the version of TeX shipped by some distributions runs into
|
| 14 | internal limits and fails to process the documents properly).
|
| 15 |
|
| 16 | Various web sites discuss kernel development at all levels of detail. Your
|
| 17 | author would like to humbly suggest https://lwn.net/ as a source;
|
| 18 | information on many specific kernel topics can be found via the LWN kernel
|
| 19 | index at:
|
| 20 |
|
| 21 | https://lwn.net/Kernel/Index/
|
| 22 |
|
| 23 | Beyond that, a valuable resource for kernel developers is:
|
| 24 |
|
| 25 | https://kernelnewbies.org/
|
| 26 |
|
| 27 | And, of course, one should not forget https://kernel.org/, the definitive
|
| 28 | location for kernel release information.
|
| 29 |
|
| 30 | There are a number of books on kernel development:
|
| 31 |
|
| 32 | Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition (Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro
|
| 33 | Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman). Online at
|
| 34 | https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/.
|
| 35 |
|
| 36 | Linux Kernel Development (Robert Love).
|
| 37 |
|
| 38 | Understanding the Linux Kernel (Daniel Bovet and Marco Cesati).
|
| 39 |
|
| 40 | All of these books suffer from a common fault, though: they tend to be
|
| 41 | somewhat obsolete by the time they hit the shelves, and they have been on
|
| 42 | the shelves for a while now. Still, there is quite a bit of good
|
| 43 | information to be found there.
|
| 44 |
|
| 45 | Documentation for git can be found at:
|
| 46 |
|
| 47 | https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/
|
| 48 |
|
| 49 | https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html
|
| 50 |
|
| 51 |
|
| 52 | Conclusion
|
| 53 | ==========
|
| 54 |
|
| 55 | Congratulations to anybody who has made it through this long-winded
|
| 56 | document. Hopefully it has provided a helpful understanding of how the
|
| 57 | Linux kernel is developed and how you can participate in that process.
|
| 58 |
|
| 59 | In the end, it's the participation that matters. Any open source software
|
| 60 | project is no more than the sum of what its contributors put into it. The
|
| 61 | Linux kernel has progressed as quickly and as well as it has because it has
|
| 62 | been helped by an impressively large group of developers, all of whom are
|
| 63 | working to make it better. The kernel is a premier example of what can be
|
| 64 | done when thousands of people work together toward a common goal.
|
| 65 |
|
| 66 | The kernel can always benefit from a larger developer base, though. There
|
| 67 | is always more work to do. But, just as importantly, most other
|
| 68 | participants in the Linux ecosystem can benefit through contributing to the
|
| 69 | kernel. Getting code into the mainline is the key to higher code quality,
|
| 70 | lower maintenance and distribution costs, a higher level of influence over
|
| 71 | the direction of kernel development, and more. It is a situation where
|
| 72 | everybody involved wins. Fire up your editor and come join us; you will be
|
| 73 | more than welcome.
|