jvns/kernelfuntalk.md

Hello!

Did you see my talk at CUSEC? If you're interested in hacking on the Linux kernel, here are some more resources! If you have suggestions for learning about OS X or Windows, or you're interested in learning about BSD, let me know!

• 4 paths to becoming a kernel hacker explains the 4 strategies I talked about in the talk.
• I talked about Hacker School, which is amazing.
• I wrote a lot about kernel programming on my blog

Reading kernel code:

• LXR and http://livegrep.com/ are great for the Linux kernel
• The source for the current Mac OS X kernel

Writing kernel modules:

• You can see the source code for the rickroll kernel module that I demoed. It's extensively commented. (Thanks to Tavish Armstrong and Kamal Marhubi for suggesting and writing this, respectively.)
• There are a few more example kernel modules in this GitHub repository

Writing an OS:

• The OSDEV wiki is a great resource. I used it constantly.
• MikeOS looks like a good place to start.

Internships:

• The Linux foundation participates in Google Summer of Code
• If you're a woman, you can apply to the Outreach Program for Women
• Read Sarah Sharp's blog post about how 137 patches got accepted into the kernel during the first round

If you have questions about any of this, you can get in touch with me! This goes double plus especially for you if you're a woman, but I'm happy to talk to anyone.

My email address is [email protected]. I'm @b0rk on Twitter.