kernel REAME idea

newtovanilla · 04-30-2008, 09:05 PM

I have no idea where this post should go. I put it here. You can move it if it should be somewhere else.

I read the README for the 2.6.X kernel, and have an idea about how to make it better so that it could be a little bit easier to understand. As it now is, it can be a bit confusing for people who are new to Linux and who are new to building the kernel. Since the README does not seem to change that much between the versions, if it is updated once then it can be helpful for lots of newbies like me.

1) Put the items into clearly marked sections. Three sections at least. One section would be for downloading the kernel, one for building the kernel, and one for patching the kernel. Right now, there are no clear section divisions in the README and it is confusing to know what part is for the patch and what part is for the entire build.

2) Show the commands to use separately for each step. Have a brief section description to clearly separate the steps. When a command is issued, show what directory that command should be used in, and the full path name in your example.

3) Add some comments of things that newbies would not know about, but an experienced user would know about, such as the options for the commands that work for most cases.

4) Add some information about the locations of where files are stored from the make commands, and how it selects the arch directory. For example, if you select a configuration option to use a different processor than i386, such as a pentium 4, is it going to put the image in another directory?

5) Explain about why you need to copy the kernel image into the boot directory. The make install seems to already do that, but it changes the name to something other than bzImage, such as linux-2.4.0

Smedley · 04-30-2008, 09:12 PM

Join the kernel mailing list here:

http://www.kernel.org/

Code:

The Linux kernel is discussed on the linux-kernel mailing list at vger.kernel.org. The FAQ is available at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/lkml/, please read the FAQ before subscribing.

Although there is no official archive site, unofficial archives of the list can be found at:

    * http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel
    * http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/

and a summary service can be found at:

    * http://www.kernel-traffic.org/

I'm sure they would appreciate your input.

newtovanilla · 04-30-2008, 09:38 PM

Thank you for your comment. How do I join a mailing list? Will I get a ton of mail?

newtovanilla · 05-04-2008, 01:11 AM

Smedley,

Thank you for the comment on joining the kernel mailing list. I did go to www.kernel.org and they had an email that you can send your comments to. I tried to send email to them with the README suggestions for the kernel, and I got the mail sent back to me. It indicated that there was some problem sending mail to them and that the spam filter did not let the mail go through. I put a post up about it. I also asked if someone can send the suggestions to them, because I could not get the mail to them.

I tried to send with gmail, and did not add any HTML, but the spam filter said that it had HTML in it. I changed the settings on gmail and sent it again as unicode, but it still came back.