# Best area to contribute usefully



## DrunkDaemon (Mar 20, 2022)

So to introduce myself (this is my first post on this forum ever). I am 1 year away from graduating as a masters in applied comp. science. I enjoy learning about operating systems and programming a lot. Especially systems programming (I love programming in Rust and C). I have some experience with C and writing embedded C code, a decent enough understanding about OS details etc and quite a bit of general purpose programming experience.

I have taken an interest into freebsd about 1,5years ago and been using it on and off ever since. Mostly toying around with it, installing it on my raspberry pi, testing things out, learning to use jails, following the handbook. I also started reading the "writing freebsd drivers, a guide for the intrepid" book and "freebsd design and implementation" and am about 1/3 of the way in both of those books.

I still use Linux as my daily driver (because of the availability of the latest software and many applications that take more effort to get working in freebsd + my classes kinda assume that we use a "common" desktop os, like Linux/windows/macOS). But I really love freeBSD. What attracts me is that the system is more complete and easy to comprehend. Everything is documented better, source code is in 1 place all together and usually more comprehensive and well-documented. All whilst having similar performance to Linux.

I am a bit in a phase of boredom right now, where I want to code something and find a project to keep myself busy, but I don't have the creativity to come up with something. I would love to do some OS/systems development and figured that contributing to freeBSD would be a fun thing to do.

However, I don't know where to start or what would be the most useful thing to contribute to, whilst not being to overwhelming or too simple/boring.


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## Phishfry (Mar 21, 2022)

What really interests you? That is the best engagement. A personal goal.

I would like to see more Arm board developers.

Have you considered porting a new Arm board to FreeBSD? I can supply the hardware.

There is a thread on the forum from the FreeBSD foundation asking for suggestions.
That is a good place to start.








						Call for Foundation-supported Project Ideas
					

Hello all,  There is a thread on the freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list seeking project ideas.  If you have ideas about projects that the Foundation could support, please leave your feedback.  -- Joe (with Foundation hat on)




					forums.freebsd.org
				



Pick something off that list and make an announcment on various mailings list letting people know your plan.
That would avoid duplicate efforts and might result in additional feedback on worthiness.


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 21, 2022)

Welcome to FreeBSD Forums.



DrunkDaemon said:


> … Everything is documented better, …



There's _always_ room for improvement, so if you like good documentation – and if you imagine yourself using FreeBSD for another eighteen months (or more) – you could prepare yourself to make improvements.

FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for New Contributors | FreeBSD Documentation Portal

In the midst of the book: <https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/fdp-primer/book/#asciidoctor-primer>


*An example* of a FreeBSD bug where the patch file should be fairly simple: 

262689 – docs tell to install a pkg which is not available (i386-wine)
<https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/wine/#thirtytwo-vs-sixtyfour-bit-wine> there's the outdated part of the short HTML version of the FreeBSD Handbook, with an invitation to Edit this page. 

<https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/book/#thirtytwo-vs-sixtyfour-bit-wine> the same invitation for the long HTML (non-split) version of the Handbook. 

It's not yet clear, to me, whether it's necessary to edit two versions when making a single correction. Hopefully the answer to this question is in the Primer.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 21, 2022)

Contributing to FreeBSD as a programmer


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## bobmc (Mar 24, 2022)

DrunkDaemon said:


> However, I don't know where to start or what would be the most useful thing to contribute to, whilst not being to overwhelming or too simple/boring.


Have you seen the Ideas page.  There is a couple of man-years work there. https://wiki.freebsd.org/IdeasPage


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## diizzy (Mar 24, 2022)

You could start easy by submitting patches for ports that are out of date etc, even cleaning up deprecated and/or abandoned helps 
PRs such as https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=246106 might also be of interest

Otherwise pick something that you're intested in although I would suggest that you ask on -hackers and/or related mailing list as there might be someone who's already working on that area (no need to do overlapping work).


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## msplsh (Mar 24, 2022)

Could update pf with features from OpenBSD


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## nayan (Mar 24, 2022)

Hi Everyone,
Instead of creating another thread, I thought I'd jump in and introduce myself since I joined this forum today and also wish to contribute. A bit of background:

Started using AIX, HP-UX and Solaris in the 1990s. Used to code in C and C++ a lot then. Started using Linux (most flavours) in 1997, and OpenBSD and FreeBSD about 10 years ago -- on and off. Lately, I have installed FreeBSD on a Raspberry Pi and on my Mac (with VirtualBox). Going through Kong's book on device drivers during weekends.

Any coding help I can provide -- especially C (don't like C++ as I think it has become as bloated as Java these days; no offence meant to anyone) -- then please let me know.


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## grahamperrin@ (Mar 25, 2022)

DrunkDaemon said:


> 𡀦… the most useful thing to contribute to, whilst not being to overwhelming …



From the assignee of FreeBSD bug 262713 – audio/pulseaudio: update to 15.0: 



> Long been on my list since I have to hot-plug some audio devices and the stuff that Greg V upstreamed may work, but limited cycles are a hamper. Anyone is welcome to hack at the port itself in the meantime.



DrunkDaemon too overwhelming?


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## bxbzq (Mar 25, 2022)

There are so many areas to make FreeBSD better. How about bluetooth and wireless NIC driver, for desktop usage?


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## DrunkDaemon (Mar 28, 2022)

Thanks for the answers! Have got some nice inspiration and ideas now! Had some things happening in my personal life the last week, so sorry for the late answer. Am looking forward to start contributing! Currently hacking around with setting up my development/testing environment and just messing around and testing things out.


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