18: FOR MORE INFORMATION 2 3There are numerous sources of information on Linux kernel development and 4related topics. First among those will always be the Documentation 5directory found in the kernel source distribution. The top-level HOWTO 6file is an important starting point; SubmittingPatches and 7SubmittingDrivers are also something which all kernel developers should 8read. Many internal kernel APIs are documented using the kerneldoc 9mechanism; "make htmldocs" or "make pdfdocs" can be used to generate those 10documents in HTML or PDF format (though the version of TeX shipped by some 11distributions runs into internal limits and fails to process the documents 12properly). 13 14Various web sites discuss kernel development at all levels of detail. Your 15author would like to humbly suggest http://lwn.net/ as a source; 16information on many specific kernel topics can be found via the LWN kernel 17index at: 18 19 http://lwn.net/Kernel/Index/ 20 21Beyond that, a valuable resource for kernel developers is: 22 23 http://kernelnewbies.org/ 24 25And, of course, one should not forget http://kernel.org/, the definitive 26location for kernel release information. 27 28There are a number of books on kernel development: 29 30 Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition (Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro 31 Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman). Online at 32 http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/. 33 34 Linux Kernel Development (Robert Love). 35 36 Understanding the Linux Kernel (Daniel Bovet and Marco Cesati). 37 38All of these books suffer from a common fault, though: they tend to be 39somewhat obsolete by the time they hit the shelves, and they have been on 40the shelves for a while now. Still, there is quite a bit of good 41information to be found there. 42 43Documentation for git can be found at: 44 45 http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/ 46 47 http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html 48 49 509: CONCLUSION 51 52Congratulations to anybody who has made it through this long-winded 53document. Hopefully it has provided a helpful understanding of how the 54Linux kernel is developed and how you can participate in that process. 55 56In the end, it's the participation that matters. Any open source software 57project is no more than the sum of what its contributors put into it. The 58Linux kernel has progressed as quickly and as well as it has because it has 59been helped by an impressively large group of developers, all of whom are 60working to make it better. The kernel is a premier example of what can be 61done when thousands of people work together toward a common goal. 62 63The kernel can always benefit from a larger developer base, though. There 64is always more work to do. But, just as importantly, most other 65participants in the Linux ecosystem can benefit through contributing to the 66kernel. Getting code into the mainline is the key to higher code quality, 67lower maintenance and distribution costs, a higher level of influence over 68the direction of kernel development, and more. It is a situation where 69everybody involved wins. Fire up your editor and come join us; you will be 70more than welcome. 71