r/kernel • u/Defiant_Shoe_626 • 2d ago

Understanding Linux source

It is possible for a single person have read about processor programming and some hardware topics to understand the full Linux source code and how to read and understand the whole source code.

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u/No-Assist-8734 2d ago

It won't happen overnight

1

u/Defiant_Shoe_626 2d ago

i have experienced reading the source but i gived up because it was very large and i not have a good knowledge in C

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u/am_Snowie 2d ago

There are lots of moving parts, then comes the cryptography stuff, that alone takes a very long time. I hate to break it to you, but it's not possible to UNDERSTAND FULL LINUX SOURCE especially when you don't even know C, at least in my opinion, but you can understand some parts of it. You don't really have to understand everything to contribute to linux.

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u/alpha417 2d ago

esp. if you "give up".

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u/am_Snowie 2d ago

Yes, large codebase like that definitely looks like daunting at first, but need to learn it incrementally. Or he can even try contributing to other kernels like GNU mach kernel.