Robert Watson : Reading the FreeBSD Kernel (ZT)
In September, 2005, I had the opportunity to exchange e-mail with Halil Demirezen on the subject of getting to know the FreeBSD kernel. Since the answer seemed of more general interest, I thought I'd posted it on my web site in case it was of interest to anyone else.
From rwatson at FreeBSD.org Tue Sep 6 14:10:10 2005
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 14:10:10 +0100 (BST)
From: Robert Watson <rwatson at FreeBSD dot org>
To: Halil Demirezen < halil at enderunix dot org>
Subject: Re: One dummy question but important for me.
On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Halil Demirezen wrote:
> It is one little sample of hundred thousands of silly questions. But for
> an individual it is really important one. I have been dealing with
> kernel (/usr/src/sys/) in FreeBSD. However, this is really a big
> challenge. My graduate thesis was a little i386 kernel that boots from
> Floppy Disks (3 1/2). Run in protected mode. A shell little memory
> management and multiprocessed one.
>
> I am coping with FreeBSD kernel to understand and to hack it. Where to
> start? It is really difficult to understand the essentials. I am sure i
> will spend my time on it. But what are the first essentials for a kernel
> developer to be in the developing. I know it is easy for one who started
> developing FreeBSD from the beginning. But as the code grows, It starts
> to be impossible to begin. I tried to start from booting process. But
> the kernel structure got lost in mind. When I try to understand one
> source file, I need to open several to unite the all.
...
更多内容…From rwatson at FreeBSD.org Tue Sep 6 14:10:10 2005
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 14:10:10 +0100 (BST)
From: Robert Watson <rwatson at FreeBSD dot org>
To: Halil Demirezen < halil at enderunix dot org>
Subject: Re: One dummy question but important for me.
On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Halil Demirezen wrote:
> It is one little sample of hundred thousands of silly questions. But for
> an individual it is really important one. I have been dealing with
> kernel (/usr/src/sys/) in FreeBSD. However, this is really a big
> challenge. My graduate thesis was a little i386 kernel that boots from
> Floppy Disks (3 1/2). Run in protected mode. A shell little memory
> management and multiprocessed one.
>
> I am coping with FreeBSD kernel to understand and to hack it. Where to
> start? It is really difficult to understand the essentials. I am sure i
> will spend my time on it. But what are the first essentials for a kernel
> developer to be in the developing. I know it is easy for one who started
> developing FreeBSD from the beginning. But as the code grows, It starts
> to be impossible to begin. I tried to start from booting process. But
> the kernel structure got lost in mind. When I try to understand one
> source file, I need to open several to unite the all.
...
