# Need advice to start in FreeBSD development



## dheerajsuthar (Nov 30, 2010)

Greetings to All Forum users!
Its great to work with Freebsd again after so long(my college insists all development work on Windows)
However, I will directly come to my query.
For quite some time I am trying to contribute back to open source s/w especially Freebsd(have decided to concentrate on it solely.).Can the kind seniors here guide me how to raise my skills to the level of Freebsd development.

*My current skill sets*:
Languages: C,C++,Java,Assembly(AT&T & Intel),Python{esp.good in C,Java}
Web:HTML,CSS,Perl,CGI,CMS(Joomla,Wordpress,Plone){Made web-site for institutes.}
Core Subjects: Operating Systems, Data Structures,Networks,Unix System Programming
{Admitting, much of it had been theoretical only with less implementation}

I now want to concentrate on *Operating Systems and System Software* as these are my subjects of interest.*Also I want to do my project work(1 semester long) on Operating Systems itself(preferably FreeBSD).* I have taken following steps until now:-

1.Installed latest FreeBSD 8.1 (Also had worked on 8.0Release)
2.Completed both Absolute FreeBSD and Complete FreeBSD and most of the online documentation. Also finished OSC by Galvin & Gagne as part of course.
3.Have obtained McKusick's Design and Implementation of FreeBSD operating Systems and Tannenbaum's Operating Systems design and implementation. Currently reading it.
4.Downloaded Intel Manuals(as that's the platform I wan't to concentrate on). Now here I am facing difficulty especially protected mode, task-switching etc.Too much information. But will try my best to go through it.
5.Going through sources mentioned here.

Are these steps correct in your view. Kindly suggest what more I can do and where to go next.

Also I am going through the current project list here. Should I join those now only or after some more readings?

I apologize for length of post, but I believe members will understand my seriousness. I really want to go beyond my mediocre level and become good programmer and contribute back to the industry.


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## lme@ (Nov 30, 2010)

It's great to see your interest in developing FreeBSD. 
As you already found the project list, feel free to pick some project of your interest. If you have something else in mind or like to have some other possible projects, you could also say hello at the hackers@freebsd.org mailing list.
Unfortunately there are not too many developers around on the forums, so I guess you should receive more responses from the mailing lists.


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## Alt (Nov 30, 2010)

I think there must be a special guy in FreeBSD team, who will just give some tasks to volunteers which dont know how to start.


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## dheerajsuthar (Nov 30, 2010)

lme@ said:
			
		

> It's great to see your interest in developing FreeBSD.
> As you already found the project list, feel free to pick some project of your interest. If you have something else in mind or like to have some other possible projects, you could also say hello at the hackers@freebsd.org mailing list.
> Unfortunately there are not too many developers around on the forums, so I guess you should receive more responses from the mailing lists.



Thanks a ton lme@.
I have introduced my self on hackers@freebsd.org. Also will join mailing lists. But they are quite many. Which will be good to join in beginning? (device driver, freebsd-hackers looks suitable, i guess). As per projects, I have mailed link(to freebsd projects list) to my professors and classmates. Will finalize in 2-3 days.
Also, any further reading suggestions? (for kernel programming and advanced c/assembly){already going through Mcusick'book,online docs}.
Thanks again, Hope I will soon be productive to freebsd community.


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## dheerajsuthar (Nov 30, 2010)

Alt said:
			
		

> I think there must be a special guy in FreeBSD team, who will just give some tasks to volunteers which dont know how to start.



thanks for kind reply.
That's a good idea. :stud


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## FBSD (Nov 30, 2010)

Great to see you interested in developing for FreeBSD, dheerajsuthar!

For ideas you could have a look on the FreeBSD Ideas list and if you want to join an existing project you could check out the FreeBSD Wiki.


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## dheerajsuthar (Dec 1, 2010)

FBSD said:
			
		

> Great to see you interested in developing for FreeBSD, dheerajsuthar!
> 
> For ideas you could have a look on the FreeBSD Ideas list and if you want to join an existing project you could check out the FreeBSD Wiki.



Thanks for reply!
Currently working on it. Shall report any progress soon.


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## trasz@ (Dec 1, 2010)

Make sure to participate in Google Summer of Code.


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## dheerajsuthar (Dec 1, 2010)

trasz@ said:
			
		

> Make sure to participate in Google Summer of Code.



Thanks for inspiration trasz@.
If i take part and contribute in the projects listed(in freebsd project idea list) for google summer of code will I automatically be eligible for it. Or i have to register for it separately?


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## trasz@ (Dec 1, 2010)

You need to register separately.


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## BrockyL (Dec 24, 2010)

dheerajsuthar,
 Expirement and try new hardware.
 also check out opencores, and wine.
 Wine is a windows emulator that I have found to be easy to use, Much easier than prepackaged closed source projects like win4bsd. As a matter of fact you can even develop for windows binarys using the toolset that comes with wine.
 And for a quick start you can fetch wingrub(Gnu's GRand Unified Bootloader), the ntfs module and boot the freebsd kernel with a zipped ufs filesystem straight from your windows partition., it's then tricky to update the base distro, but with ntfs-3g from fuse, which is open source aswell, I can modify my windows partition from freebsd. Very Handy. 
 Hopes, BrockyL


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## dheerajsuthar (Dec 26, 2010)

BrockyL said:
			
		

> dheerajsuthar,
> Expirement and try new hardware.
> also check out opencores, and wine.
> Wine is a windows emulator that I have found to be easy to use, Much easier than prepackaged closed source projects like win4bsd. As a matter of fact you can even develop for windows binarys using the toolset that comes with wine.
> ...



Thanks BrockyL for your kind suggestion. Will check those projects as I too find them quite useful.


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