8.Conclusion.rst 3.1 KB

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