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What I discovered about pointers when I was learning C

Posted 07-25-2019 at 06:25 AM by hazel
Updated 08-29-2020 at 07:51 AM by hazel

I first started fiddling about with C when I became a Linux user. I had done some previous hobby programming; like many people back in the 1970's, I started with BASIC, moved on to Fortran and then Pascal, which I particularly liked because of its logical structure.

In all these languages, a variable was simply a named entity that had a type (for example integer) and a value. You did not have to bother about where it was stored. The computer handled that for you. These languages were...

hazel

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Posted in Programming

Views 2452 Comments 3 hazel is offline

Some tips on programming in C

Posted 07-18-2019 at 12:11 PM by hazel
Updated 07-21-2019 at 10:38 AM by hazel

Many people, after using Linux for a while, get the programming bug. I doubt if that often happens to Windows users, but Linux offers such convenient tools for writing programs that it tempts you to put one toe into the water.

Here are one or two tips that you might want to follow to make programming less stressful and confusing. I have chosen C as the language because it's one I know something about. Most of what I want to say applies just as much to C++. Some of it probably applies...

hazel

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Posted in Programming

Views 775 Comments 0 hazel is offline

Technological fossils

Posted 04-17-2019 at 12:11 PM by hazel

One of the problems of old age is that nothing looks the way it ought to any more. Take telephones. I have a very clear mental picture of what a telephone ought to look like. It is black, shaped like a truncated pyramid with concave sides and a cradle on the top to hold the receiver. On the front is a circular dial with a chrome-plated surround containing 10 holes. You dialled a number by putting the tip of your index finger into a hole and pulling the dial around clockwise as far as it would go,...

hazel

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Posted in Uncategorized

Views 784 Comments 3 hazel is offline

Notes on building a kernel

Posted 11-18-2018 at 12:12 PM by hazel
Updated 01-16-2020 at 04:50 AM by hazel

First of all, why would you ever want to build a kernel? All binary Linux distros (and that means most distros) come with a ready-made "stock" kernel that will run on just about any type of hardware.

In the early days of Linux, many people built their own kernels because memory and disk space were both limited. It made sense to create a kernel that was lean and mean, that would contain drivers only for the hardware you actually had and no spare fat. Nowadays a stock kernel...

hazel

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Posted in Linux kernel

Views 1881 Comments 0 hazel is offline

Bisecting a kernel

Posted 09-04-2018 at 08:12 AM by hazel
Updated 11-27-2019 at 10:53 AM by hazel

Sometimes you find yourself doing things that you would previously have considered as only suitable for geeks.

I don't consider it particularly geeky to build your own kernel. When I was starting out with Linux, hardware was pretty limited, and building a custom kernel was often the best way to get a quick boot. Nowadays I prefer to use the stock kernel if there is one, but two of my regular distros (Crux and LFS) require a hand-rolled kernel.

I have always regarded...

hazel

LQ Guru

Posted in Linux kernel

Views 639 Comments 0 hazel is offline

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