Thank you for responding in such detail, it helps a lot. Right now I'm not sure what I'm interested in -- I'm interested in everything. I'm going to try to install the current svn of grub2 to an test computer that I have, and see what works and what doesn't.
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 5:29 AM, Vesa Jääskeläinen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Jay, > > Welcome on the board! > > Jay Sullivan wrote: > > Hi, I'm very interested in helping out with the grub project, but I don't > > know where to begin! I've been interested in the project for a long > time, > > but I try to respect people's time and I don't like to ask stupid > questions > > until I've searched hard for the answers by myself. I've tried very hard > to > > find good documentation for GRUB, but, erm......all of the decent > tutorials > > out there are incomplete at best, and many of them make too many > assumptions > > to be very helpful. I've read many tutorials but it seems like each one > > conflicts with the others. > > I assume you are wanting to help with GRUB 2. > > Well we have wiki. > > http://grub.enbug.org/ > http://grub.enbug.org/ContributingChangesToGrub > > This is supposed to be central point for developer oriented information. > There are parts that are outdated. So if you see something weird or > would like to know something better, please ask so we can improve the wiki. > > > First of all, I'm having trouble even understanding the grub > architecture, > > and most of that is because I am constantly seeing conflicting > information > > all over the internet due to the common fact that many people are > ambiguous > > with which branch of grub they are referring to. Also, there seems to be > a > > plague of broken and outdated links. > > For GRUB 2 there exists only one official development branch (there are > others but basically we want to keep it as one branch). Idea for GRUB 2 > is to promote other people to contribute patches to upstream. > > > In general, though, I've found that grub is extremely underdocumented; > but > > of the reading material which I have found to be at all helpful, there is > a > > MAJOR tendency to overcomplicate things. I have a background in C and > x86 > > assembly programming, and have had my fair share of device driving > > programming. I enjoy helping others track down bugs in their code, and I > > love writing idiot-proof tutorials (being the idiot that I am). > > > > I'm not afraid to sit down and read thousands of lines of code if that's > > what it takes to be up to date with the project. I just want to make sure > > I'm not headed in the wrong direction or anything. > > Ask what you want to know :) > > > I remember reading a LONG time ago that the ETA for GRUB-2.0 was > "November > > 2008," and so I expected to start seeing a lot more tutorials devoted to > > helping people prepare for it, but this hasn't happened as quickly as I'd > > hoped. So I figured I would try to delve into the project and see what's > > REALLY going on. > > I would assume 2006 but hey :). So basically there are things to be > done. There are different roles of developers. Some of them are > developing specific features, and some of them are trying to catch up > with features of GRUB legacy, and some just trying to follow the > "roadmap" for GRUB 2. Which is kinda zapped at this time. > > Keypoint here is, what are your interests? What do you want to work on. > > Some pointers that we see missing: > > https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?group=grub > http://grub.enbug.org/TodoList > > Oh.. before you start coding. Better start discussion on this list > because there might be others working on the same thing, or there might > be some ideas from long term developers how it should be made. > > > I've only been using linux for a little over a year, and before that was > a > > windows programmer (yes, I'm ashamed of my past), so I know I won't be > much > > help as far as programming anything useful anytime soon. I can, however, > > offer to seek and hunt down typos or inconsistencies in the code > comments, > > that is unless the grub team is against that idea. I think proper > > documentation is the key to any project's long term survival, and I take > > comments seriously and expect them to be unambiguous and at the same time > > not superfluous. > > Don't be shamed by your past. It is good to have variable development > background. > > Documentation for GRUB 2 is missing so I have nothing against updating > that one. > > However just walking the source code and trying to understand everything > might be boring task. So I would prefer that take some of the bugs and > see how they work (or why they wont) and then discuss it. Please skip > bug reports about GRUB legacy and look at GRUB 2 issues if you go that > path. > > https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=grub > > Thanks, > Vesa Jääskeläinen > > > _______________________________________________ > Grub-devel mailing list > Grub-devel@gnu.org > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel >
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