Getting started with kernel development
First Steps
Kernel coder Greg Kroah-Hartman explains how to take your first steps with the kernel team – and highlights some exciting new developments in Linux.
No discussion of Linux is complete without a look at the sprawling yet wonderfully efficient operation at the center of it all: the kernel development project. For an inside look, we chased down one of the leading insiders: Greg Kroah-Hartman is a Linux Foundation fellow and the maintainer of the kernel stable branch. He also created the udev device manager, founded the Linux Driver project, and worked on many other drivers and subsystems in the Linux space. We asked Greg how he got started – and how an aspiring kernel hacker who is new in the field could take their first steps.
Linux Magazine: For readers who don't know you, how long have you been working on the Linux kernel, what are you working on, and how does that influence your daily routine?
Greg Kroah-Hartman: I started contributing to Linux pretty late compared to many other core kernel developers, with my first patches getting merged I think in 1997 or 1998. I had been using Linux for quite a while before that, but I just did not have the time to contribute to it before then.
[...]
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