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I want to learn linux kernel, I think it's kinda hard to understand the whole thing as many of you mentioned in other questions, anyway, I'm really interested in the process management part of it.

I wanna do something really small first, and I hope one of you can help me do it, which is booting the pc and printing some text and shutdown, Is there a code (bootstrap program) small enough to do this, where I can just copy it to a cd and boot the pc and print something and then shutdown?

Thanks,

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Do you only want to print some text and then shutdown immediately? How would you test whether it worked? Seems to me you'd at least want to wait for the user to acknowledge it with a keypress. And now your task gets a lot more complicated because you've just brought keyboard input into it. Even simple tasks are not often truly as simple as they appear at first... – Mason Wheeler Dec 28 '11 at 0:14
Yes you're right, is there any tutorial that could provide simple print and keystroke to shutdown? – Rafal Dec 28 '11 at 0:19
Linux Kernal Map: makelinux.net/kernel_map – Loki Astari Dec 28 '11 at 2:38
learninglinuxkernel.com That should help you out, this thread should be moved to the Linux/Unix Stack Exchange website since it is more about Linux and Unix than programming. – 11D Reality Hacker Dec 28 '11 at 19:29

3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

There is an out of date, but free, online book that will at least give you an overall map of the kernel.

Then there is a slightly newer (but still out of date) book by O'Reilly. The book on device drivers is also very useful

Then of course you can just read the source!

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O'really Linux Device Driver is an all time recommended book but I feel it more of an API walkthrough of kernel code and can be difficult for a beginner. I find Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development (3rd Edition) more comfortable and much better than any other kernel book available.

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The website Kernel Newbies can be a good start.

Kernelnewbies are a community of people that improve or update their Kernels and of aspiring Linux kernel developers and more experienced developers willing to share their knowledge. We help each other learn how the Linux kernel works and occasionally discuss other operating system kernels.

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