Re: [tlug] Peeling onions.

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 00:47:35 -0000 (GMT), ijw@example.com
<ijw@example.com> wrote:

> The secret to innovation, in my mind, is to have something so small that
> you can rewrite it easily.  Linux is now too big.

You are right, up to a point, but Linux is surprisingly accessible, if
you have an old machine that you are willing to destroy in your
initial baby steps.

I took a one-semester course on Unix Kernel Internals at uni, and we
had to do four different kernel projects. One of which was writing a
filesystem, another adding exec protection to data pages, the other
two more trivial (in fact, so trivial that I do not remember what they
were--I think one had to do with bootstrapping). We used O'Reilly's
_Understanding the Linux Kernel, 2nd Edition_
(http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxkernel2/index.html) as our
textbook.

Kernel hacking really ain't that hard if you know your way around the
design of a modern OS and you are a fair-to-middlin' C coder.

NachOS is also a great tool for learning about OS design without
putting real silicon at risk:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/tom/nachos/

-Josh