Having your name as a Linux contributor is the highest level of accolade I can think of when it comes to being a programmer.
My first contribution to Linux
41–50 of 92 posts
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#42If I had no problem with devoting the time and money, contributing to the kernel (especially in a topic as obscure as making the extra buttons work on a 20-year-old laptop) is at the top of my bucket list, and I am definitely going to be doing it in the near future when my calendar clears up a bit. Exquisite write-up and OP's simple writing has a motivating ring to it, and I'm now on the local used marketplace lookin…
If you want to find devices that still need hardware support under Linux, I highly recommend trying to get a mobile Linux distribution to work on an old smartphone or tablet. postmarketOS in particular has a really good devices page [1] showing missing feature support at a glance, as well as guides for porting to new devices [2] and porting features from an outdated vendor-provided Linux fork to the upstream kernel […
I genuinely want to work on postmarketOS but I don't have the technical know-how right now but one day.
I would prefer a sort of dual-boot or just a simple ability to run linux in "android phones"
Like, if we were to build a linux phone somehow hacking it through a raspberry pi or the alikes, they would be so much more costly and subpar.
Android phones have whole globalization working on it and the only reason why they don't work is lack of drivers support/software side, something which can be worked on.
I think if society rewards something like PostMarketOS more/make it easier to install it, then things can be so great as well.
I know I can run a terminal inside android but till now it was only possible through qemu which had its issues...
https://www.androidauthority.com/android-linux-terminal-app-...
I am not sure but I have never really appreciated having linux run inside a vm, I'd much rather run something like waydroid in a postmarketOS phone than linux inside android in an ideal world technically speaking from strictly performance but we don't live in one and installing waydroid on postmarketos or even installing postmarketos can be a very huge issue whereas installing linux on android can be a single step with termux or userLand.
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#43I wonder why they haven't upgraded the spinning hard disk to an SSD. Even on old hardware you'll find that often the HDD still presents a bottleneck.
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#44Wait… Koskivuori? Well of course they took his Linux patch right away, this is blatant Finnish favoritism! Imagine if some poor Estonian tried similar… ;-) Just kidding, very cool to see a blow by blow of landing a Linux patch. I felt similar excitement landing a mere emacs patch.
The joke gets even better when you consider that the subsystem maintainer that reviewed my patch is also Finnish :]
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#45This was a great read. Congratulations on your first contribution to the kernel!
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#46I wonder why they haven't upgraded the spinning hard disk to an SSD. Even on old hardware you'll find that often the HDD still presents a bottleneck.
I wanted to hold off on that upgrade until I found a source of reliable, high-quality PATA SSDs. Haven't looked into that yet, suggestions welcome!
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel most laptops still don't work completely out of the box with Linux, so you don't have to hunt for old hardware. Maybe you won't find an issue as simple as fixing a button, though.
> Maybe you won't find an issue as simple as fixing a button, though. Every laptop I've used with linux has had a few non-functioning buttons and keys. I think you underestimate the widespread issue.
If someone wants to tackle this on a laptop where this is the case, WMI is where you want to start.
https://docs.kernel.org/next/wmi/driver-development-guide.ht...
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel most laptops still don't work completely out of the box with Linux, so you don't have to hunt for old hardware. Maybe you won't find an issue as simple as fixing a button, though.
> Maybe you won't find an issue as simple as fixing a button, though. Every laptop I've used with linux has had a few non-functioning buttons and keys. I think you underestimate the widespread issue.
I've never had that problem with a Thinkpad.
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#49If I had no problem with devoting the time and money, contributing to the kernel (especially in a topic as obscure as making the extra buttons work on a 20-year-old laptop) is at the top of my bucket list, and I am definitely going to be doing it in the near future when my calendar clears up a bit. Exquisite write-up and OP's simple writing has a motivating ring to it, and I'm now on the local used marketplace lookin…
What I did was buy a wifi router with a chipset supported by OpenWrt but with no build target yet. One of the OpenWrt maintainers then guided me in what I had to do to get the info he needed for a patch. I followed his instructions, he wrote the patch and there it was, a new build target. Later I wrote a patch myself to fix the LED control. It was a rewarding and educational experience. Later I even found someone using OpenWrt on the router I helped get supported which put a smile on my face.
Re: My first contribution to Linux
#50This was really interesting! I've often wondered how one would do such a thing. Seeing your name in the Linux changelog must be awesome!
> Seeing your name in the Linux changelog must be awesome!
Years ago when I was a teenager I had a couple patches accepted for ksnake and gedit.
Certainly not as prestigious as a patch to Linux, but still the idea of code I'd written running on millions of PCs around the world felt amazing.