Kernel Task Lists

This project is intended of creating and maintaining task lists suitable for beginners looking for 'first tasks'. We often see messages of people looking for a first task to work across the mailing lists, irc channels, etc. We also know that contributing to the linux kernel can feel intimidating for many people.

The idea of is that people could offload simple non-urgent tasks that could be a way for someone learning to hack the Linux Kernel to get started with a few kernel contributions. Each task list should have a maintainer, responsible for updating the page, and beginners would copy the maintainer in their submitted patches. The tasklist maintainer ideally (according to their availability) would do a review on the patch for basic errors to ensure a welcoming experience and avoid increasing the maintainer/review burden.

Instructions for People Looking for Tasks

If you are looking for tasks, look at the active tasklists below to see which one you find more suitable for you. Then you look at the tasks, choose one that interests you, and follow the task list maintainer's instructions. When you submit your patch, remember to Cc: the tasklist maintainer and include the appropriate Suggested-by: tag as described in the task list.

The tasklist page should contain its maintainer's contacts and info on their availability for helping as well as the proper contact channel if any.

NOTE: Please, note that this project is intended to help HUMAN BEINGS to find tasks to contribute to. That said, we expect that YOU do the task. If you intend to use AI, please don't: leave the task to someone who really wants to learn to contribute.

Instructions for Task List Maintainers

To start a task list, add a tasklist name to the Active TaskLists section using the wiki internal link format. Then follow the link and create the page.

Provide the tasks with as much details as possible, including their status (i.e. whether they must be confirmed or not for automated/script-generated lists).

For each task, add a formatted Suggested-By tag containing the name of the person who suggested (yours or if you collected tasks from someone else add their name) and the link to your tasklist.

If you have several similar tasklists and you can submit one patch as an example (or you have one example patch doing the same thing), link the lore discussion so the person working on the task can see an example. This will help beginner contributors to understand what's expected of them.

Ideally, a tasklist page should be composed by the following sections:

• Tasklist maintainer info (name and e-mail to Cc: the patches, your availability to help and contact channels)

• Tasklist general info/instructions, including links to the documentation about submitting patches, explaining the relevance of a Suggested-by: and how to use it, etc.

• Open Tasks
• Finished Tasks

Each open task, ideally, would contain:

• A descriptive title
• The creation date
• A brief summary of the task
• Additional details - if you can add everything you expect from a beginner that they do to successfully complete the task that's much more encouraging for a beginner
• If possible, some history with relevant commits/discussions that originated the task

• The Suggested-By tag

Kernel Tasklists

Active TaskLists

• KernelTaskList Template

Older/Inactive/Unmaintained Task Lists

• Use this section to move a task list to whenever it's no longer maintained

Why Is This Project Worth?

This project can benefit different groups of people at once.

For the kernel community:

• Code improvement
• Cleanups
• Increase in Contributors

For Tasklist Maintainers:

• Offloading Tasks
• Reviewing Experience

For Beginner Contributors:

• An encouraging way to get started
• An opportunity to have some support