> I would like to help with coding/debugging packages for Gentoo. I have > some programming experience on a very small scale. I have an Associates > of Computer Science from a small community college, and I've never had a > job working for a software company. You spode of "good enough skills"; > I don't think I have good enough skills to help with Gentoo, but I'd > like to. Where should I start?
You know this question comes up a lot. The answer hasn't changed much over the years, and you may not like it, but it's the honest to goodness best way to start helping: just start helping. There are numerous avenues to do so, and in no particular order they are: 1. gentoo-user mailing list 2. the gentoo forums 3. join an irc channel or two (#gentoo has a steady stream of traffic of people who need help) 4. figure out what you're good at and/or what you want to learn and hop on over to bugzilla and find bugs in those areas. The caveat to the bugzilla one is this: most people who want to help go straight to maintainer-wanted bugs or try and create ebuilds for new packages. To be perfectly honest, those areas are not *where* gentoo needs help. We need help to maintain stuff already in the tree, so start at maintainer-needed or drill into some specific teams (gnome, pam, kerberos, kde, bsd, samba, mail, web-apps, there's a list of herds somewhere). Spread the word! Thanks, -- Seemant Kulleen Developer, Gentoo Linux -- [email protected] mailing list
