From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 24 10:40:59 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 857BB16A41A for ; Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:40:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from des@des.no) Received: from tim.des.no (tim.des.no [194.63.250.121]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48D0213C447 for ; Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:40:59 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from des@des.no) Received: from tim.des.no (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by spam.des.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 11416207F; Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:40:51 +0100 (CET) X-Spam-Tests: AWL X-Spam-Learn: disabled X-Spam-Score: -0.2/3.0 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on tim.des.no Received: from ds4.des.no (des.no [80.203.243.180]) by smtp.des.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 02C3D2049; Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:40:50 +0100 (CET) Received: by ds4.des.no (Postfix, from userid 1001) id E053A844AF; Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:40:50 +0100 (CET) From: =?utf-8?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= To: "william wong" References: <84a208a0801232306k6a34134aqd549a1ba2160fe41@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:40:50 +0100 In-Reply-To: <84a208a0801232306k6a34134aqd549a1ba2160fe41@mail.gmail.com> (william wong's message of "Thu\, 24 Jan 2008 15\:06\:24 +0800") Message-ID: <86bq7bwlot.fsf@ds4.des.no> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/22.1 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD hacker 101 X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:40:59 -0000 "william wong" writes: > Are there any docments or pointers to get me started hacking around my > 6.3 asap? Building toochains, submitting patches etc.... or i just > follow most of the conventions in the Linux kernel development > community? The toolchain is already in place, no need to build anything. You'll find our make is different from GNU make. It may take a while to get used to it, but when you do, you'll find it much more powerful. The official channel for patch submissions is send-pr(1), but due to manpower issues, PRs often get lost in the noise. Posting the patch to the appropriate mailing list may be more effective. Speaking of patches, you should seriously consider upgrading to RELENG_7, as 6.3 is quite possibly the very last RELENG_6 release, and patches against 6.3 won't raise much interest from developers. You'll find information on how to upgrade in the handbook. The biggest difference you will notice from Linux is that pretty much everything, including major kernel subsystems, is documented in man pages. If you find something (a library function or system call or kernel module) that doesn't have a man page, try to track down the author and prod them - or bitch on freebsd-doc until someone writes a man page - or write it yourself if you feel up to learning groff (which isn't for the faint of heart, but you get used to it after a while) DES --=20 Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav - des@des.no