A Request to all Linux Experts

[viveksri15]

Hi all.

I am Vivek Srivastava from India. I have recently passed out from an
engineering college and have a offer from a bank to work as software
engineer in next 3 months. I am a mechanical engineer by education, but have
enough knowledge about c++ etc.

I want to get seriously involved in linux development. I am presently
working on a simulation project in Group Technology and C++ and will be free
in 5 days for next 3 months to come and after that also I will have ample
amount of time.

I am a newbie in linux.. (very novice!!) but I have become very much
interested in it recently.

Though I tried to understand how things work in Linux, but things seem to be
spread in a confusing way on the Internet.

I was wondering if any one of you out there (most of you are experts.. I
know) may be able to help me. I need a guide or a mentor to help me
through...Please help. I want to be a serious developer in the open source
community.... seriously!! :) .... and i am looking forward to a long term
relationship with the person as guide/mentor.. I don't know what i will be
able to offer in return.. but be assured.. i am a very hard working person..
so atleast you will have a worthy acolyte. :)

Waiting for replies.

Bests,
Vivek Srivastava

[pmasiar]

I am not sure how many people are looking for acolytes :-) , but many projects looks for developers.

Find a project you are interested in, and join it. Many projects have simple bugs left over for new developers - to train them for bigger tasks.

But to become useful to any project you first need to "learn the ropes" - create some programs on your own. Go to wiki in my sig for suggestions what to program.

[rksk16it]

Hi vivek ! i'm from india too :)

If u really need to work on linux kernels, i would suggest you to first read linux HOWTOS. You can get them using Synaptic Package Manager under the Documentation subsection. It is a great collection of great HOWTOS, which i think will help in the long run...though there are many parts that have nothing to do with programming (because it requires a mighty to program there !), but the concepts help a lot.

I'm also looking forward to be an Open Source Developer someday...i'm in second year of college, so i'm presently writing my own programs to 'learn the ropes' (as pmasiar said :)).

Good Luck :)

[meatpan]

I have found the book 'Understanding the Linux Kernel' to be very helpful: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxkernel/

The book is fairly terse, so you might want to keep an operating systems text handy for cross-reference. There are some other fun ways to get into the nuts & bots of linux. Try experimenting with creating a device driver. You can pick up a simple usb device ( like a light ) for a fairly low price. This will teach you a lot about filesystems, modules, and signaling. A while back, linux journal published a great step-by-step walk through of device driver creation. You might be able to find this in an on-line archive.

Some other ideas for contributing:
o Create a new type of device
o Write a kernel stress testing or unit test module
o See if you can provide insight into some open, published, bugs
o Make a new system font (this is more x11, but requires a lot of kernel-ish knowledge)

[pmasiar]

Also, there is a lot of development possibilities beyond Linux kernel, in appliacations area. I would say more possibilities, more fun, and better chance to have your code accepted.

And kernel does not use C++ at all, plain old C. Sourceforge allows you to browse projects by language.

[viveksri15]

thnx all. .

that was really helpful.

[ankursethi]

Hi there. I'm from India, too. First of all, there was no need to write that formal letter. This isn't the bloody passport office ;-).

Anyway, I'd say you start with programming applications. Just start slow and work on some small projects. Then start your own or move onto a bigger one. Just be prepared for a rough ride.

[Dylnuge]

Try out the tutorials on www.linuxcommand.org. They are helpful to understanding Linux. Don't worry, its not that hard...you will get it soon.

[FryerFox]

I would suggest getting involved in a support capacity at first. For example, the post immediate preceding yours is one I wrote asking for alpha-testers for a snapshot program:

[shameless plug]
Ubuntu Snapshot/Backup Application Development (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=469049)
[/shameless plug]

It seems that making backups is an incredibly boring topic, and the post has gotten no responses yet. Why don't you troll the forum for people asking for minor help and see what you can do. After helping out a few times, you will probably find that you are learning new things. As you get better, you will be able to triage bugs to help developers, and establish yourself as reliable - you will have much better chances of being invited into opensource projects if you have experience and a track-record.