KernelNewbies:

Round 6 (June 2013) OPW Linux kernel projects

After being accepted into the program, OPW interns worked on real-world kernel projects, ranging from parallelizing the x86 boot process to updating TTY drivers that were created in 2005 and getting them merged into the staging tree. During the internship period, interns worked remotely, communicating with mentors via email, IRC, phone conversations, and Google hangout. Interns had to manage their own time efficiently and learn how to seek help from their mentors and the community when they got stuck. These skills will prove invaliable as interns move into jobs working with the global Linux kernel community.

Staging tree

Lidza Louina worked with Greg Kroah-Hartman on improving drivers in the staging tree. Lidza started out by doing driver cleanup, then went on to merge two TTY drivers into the staging tree that had been out-of-tree since 2005. That involved getting them to compile, updating the drivers to work with new kernel API, and cleaning them up to match kernel coding style. Lidza contributed 18 patches to the 3.11 kernel, and 62 patches to the 3.12 kernel (as of 3.12-rc2).

Lidza presented about her project at LinuxCon North America on September 18, 2013. Slides are [attachment:lidza-linuxcon-na-slides.pdf here].

Xen

Lisa Nguyen worked with Konrad Wilk on the Xen block layer. The goal was to extend the Xen block drivers by implementing DIF/DIX, a protocol to add extra checksum information. Lisa will work beyond her kernel internship period to get the block layer code merged. Lisa contributed 23 patches for the 3.10 and 3.11 kernels.

Lisa presented about her project at LinuxCon North America on September 18, 2013. Slides are here.

USB

Xenia Ragiadakou worked with Sarah Sharp on the USB 3.0 host controller driver (xHCI). The byte-sized initial project was to eliminate the compile-time option to turn on xHCI driver debugging and use dynamic debugging instead. Xenia moved on to create trace events to lower the runtime-overhead of collecting debugging information, and allow debuggers to filter information based on what they wanted to trace. Xenia created 9 separate trace events, with more on the way for 3.12. She also fixed 3 bugs, and moved on to contribute to both the USB core and the EHCI host controller driver. Xenia contributed 100 patches to the 3.11 kernel, and 26 patches for the 3.12 kernel (as of 3.12-rc2).

KernelNewbies: OPWRound6 (last edited 2013-09-25 20:21:06 by SarahSharp)