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Probably nothing that will get added to the upstream source but you could make infinite file system modules for things. Userspace FUSE would probably make more

Probably nothing that will get added to the upstream source but you could make infinite file system modules for things. Userspace FUSE would probably make more sense but this would be a good way to get started. The general vibe I got when looking in to this is that the Linux kernel has more than enough contributors right now so they make no effort to make it beginner friendly or offer an easy on ramp. IIRC Linus said they have trouble simply reviewing all the changes they receive and if you want to help out Linux, your time would be better used on the non kernel projects. Things like Gnome or Libre Office would be more than happy to receive help.

Bilal_io 5y ago
And testing, I believe the Linux community needs more testers.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
It really depends what you mean by making it "beginner friendly". A lot of work goes into refactoring and cleaning up code, making things cleaner, adding documentation, adding static and dynamic checkers for locks, memory errors, and various other things, making useful common data structures and code into libraries, inspection and debugging tools, reimplementing as much hand-coded assembly as reasonably possible in C, adding a staging area in the tree and moving to a distributed vcs, there are automated CI tests that get kicked off when you post a patch to a mailing list. In my opinion it is far nicer to develop for, and a lot of code is far nicer to read than it was 20 or even 10 years ago. It's simpler to write some basic hello world filesystem or device driver module because APIs have become a lot cleaner and there are a lot more checks. It is also now far easier let's say to develop a high performance multi-queue block IO subsystem that is mostly lock free and can steer interrupts to specific CPUs based on context and have all the platform specific PCI and interrupt issues and the different memory ordering behaviors of different CPUs all just work. Linux already has one of those though. Outside of device drivers and new hardware enablement for really simple device types or minor updates to an existing device type, what the kernel is doing now is vastly more complicated. So it is a lot of work to make a significant useful change. This isn't because there is no interest in making it beginner friendly, it's because a lot more of the "easy" things are done.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  My source for this comment is the Linux Device Drivers Development book from about 2004 still being the primary source of information on linux development and when asked about an updated version the response was something like "Back when it was written we needed more developers on linux but not anymore". As well as the comment from linus which I can't find anymore where he says other OSS projects need help more than linux.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    > My source for this comment is the Linux Device Drivers Development book from about 2004 still being the primary source of information on linux development The kernel has never had any official development guide or book. Various tutorials and howtos and books come and go along the way. Another good one, https://www.kernel.org/doc/gorman/pdf/understand.pdf https://www.kernel.org/doc/gorman/pdf/understand.pdf They don't really scale at all. The device driver book scratched the surface of device drivers even back then. You can still read things like that and get an idea of the concepts which remain pretty similar, but the best way to really learn it beyond hello world stuff is getting into the code. If you want to write a device driver, start with a copy of a different driver of the same class which is well maintained, for example. > and when asked about an updated version the response was something like "Back when it was written we needed more developers on linux but not anymore". Not sure of the "we", but Linux kernel developers are in pretty decent demand today and the number of paid contributors seems to be pretty well growing. Certainly a lot since 2004. > As well as the comment from linus which I can't find anymore where he says other OSS projects need help more than linux. Yes that has long been true. I'm not saying you're simply wrong, and I'm sure some people would find great benefit in more or more up to date books on it, but there has been no point where developers just decided that's enough of making Linux more friendly to newbies or have an easier learning curve. Nor has there ever been a great deal of effort to make it easier for newbies mind you. But as I said, people are always trying to clean things up and improve docs and add more seat belts trying to do staging and mentoring and things etc.... but it's just a difficult thing to improve. My source is only my anecdote of contributing to Linux for ~20 years, so I admit I could well be biased or blind to some of these issues.

Bilal_io 5y ago

And testing, I believe the Linux community needs more testers.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

It really depends what you mean by making it "beginner friendly". A lot of work goes into refactoring and cleaning up code, making things cleaner, adding documentation, adding static and dynamic checkers for locks, memory errors, and various other things, making useful common data structures and code into libraries, inspection and debugging tools, reimplementing as much hand-coded assembly as reasonably possible in C, adding a staging area in the tree and moving to a distributed vcs, there are automated CI tests that get kicked off when you post a patch to a mailing list. In my opinion it is far nicer to develop for, and a lot of code is far nicer to read than it was 20 or even 10 years ago. It's simpler to write some basic hello world filesystem or device driver module because APIs have become a lot cleaner and there are a lot more checks. It is also now far easier let's say to develop a high performance multi-queue block IO subsystem that is mostly lock free and can steer interrupts to specific CPUs based on context and have all the platform specific PCI and interrupt issues and the different memory ordering behaviors of different CPUs all just work. Linux already has one of those though. Outside of device drivers and new hardware enablement for really simple device types or minor updates to an existing device type, what the kernel is doing now is vastly more complicated. So it is a lot of work to make a significant useful change. This isn't because there is no interest in making it beginner friendly, it's because a lot more of the "easy" things are done.

SilverRed 5y ago
My source for this comment is the Linux Device Drivers Development book from about 2004 still being the primary source of information on linux development and when asked about an updated version the response was something like "Back when it was written we needed more developers on linux but not anymore". As well as the comment from linus which I can't find anymore where he says other OSS projects need help more than linux.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  > My source for this comment is the Linux Device Drivers Development book from about 2004 still being the primary source of information on linux development The kernel has never had any official development guide or book. Various tutorials and howtos and books come and go along the way. Another good one, https://www.kernel.org/doc/gorman/pdf/understand.pdf https://www.kernel.org/doc/gorman/pdf/understand.pdf They don't really scale at all. The device driver book scratched the surface of device drivers even back then. You can still read things like that and get an idea of the concepts which remain pretty similar, but the best way to really learn it beyond hello world stuff is getting into the code. If you want to write a device driver, start with a copy of a different driver of the same class which is well maintained, for example. > and when asked about an updated version the response was something like "Back when it was written we needed more developers on linux but not anymore". Not sure of the "we", but Linux kernel developers are in pretty decent demand today and the number of paid contributors seems to be pretty well growing. Certainly a lot since 2004. > As well as the comment from linus which I can't find anymore where he says other OSS projects need help more than linux. Yes that has long been true. I'm not saying you're simply wrong, and I'm sure some people would find great benefit in more or more up to date books on it, but there has been no point where developers just decided that's enough of making Linux more friendly to newbies or have an easier learning curve. Nor has there ever been a great deal of effort to make it easier for newbies mind you. But as I said, people are always trying to clean things up and improve docs and add more seat belts trying to do staging and mentoring and things etc.... but it's just a difficult thing to improve. My source is only my anecdote of contributing to Linux for ~20 years, so I admit I could well be biased or blind to some of these issues.