Xen devel - Mar 2012 - Any tips for a newbie Xen developer? How to understand basics and start contributing fast

Hello,

I am a graduate student at the University of Kansas, Lawrence and am
interested in working on Xen, and contribute towards it.
I have background in C/C++ coding, and have taken courses in Operating
Systems, Virtual Machines, Client-Server programming, Data structures etc.

I am just beginning to get Xen working on my system. Have a yum-install
version working, but will be building xen from source so that I can look at
the source code and figure out how things are working/implemented.

I got the book, "The definitive guide to the Xen hypervisor" mentioned
in
the wiki.

My questions are these.

1. Is my background enough to figure out basics of xen, and provide
meaningful contributions to some components in the Xen hypervisor codebase ?

2. Are there any must read documentations on the xen wiki or xen.org page
that will help me get upto speed quick ? I must say I am a bit overwhelmed
since Xen is a considerable effort and there is a lot of documentation on
the webpage.  There is a lot of new terminology that I am bombarded with
(pvops, xend, xapi etc).

3. Are there any projects available to work on currently ?


-- 
Ranjith


_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@lists.xen.org
http://lists.xen.org/xen-devel

Dear Ranjith,

I have written the following documentation for Xen, Linux Kernel, and 
Xen VGA Passthrough.

Article #1: Building and Installing Xen 4.x and Linux Kernel 3.x on 
Ubuntu and Debian Linux

Version: 1.3

Filename of attachment: Building and Installing Xen 4.x and Linux Kernel 
3.x on Ubuntu and Debian Linux - Version 1.3 - REDUCED.pdf

Article #2: Xen VGA Passthrough to Windows 8 Consumer Preview HVM domU 
and Windows XP Home Edition HVM domU with Xen 4.2-unstable Changeset 
25070 and Linux Kernel 3.3.0 in Ubuntu 11.10 amd64 dom0

Version: 1.2
Filename of attachment: Xen VGA Passthrough - Version 1.2.pdf


Please download my PDF files from the attachments in this email. If you 
need help regarding Xen, Linux Kernel, and Xen VGA Passthrough, please 
feel free to email me or xen mailing lists.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Yours sincerely,

Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming)
Singapore



On 22/03/2012 03:30, Ranjith Krishnan wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am a graduate student at the University of Kansas, Lawrence and am 
> interested in working on Xen, and contribute towards it.
> I have background in C/C++ coding, and have taken courses in Operating 
> Systems, Virtual Machines, Client-Server programming, Data structures 
> etc.
>
> I am just beginning to get Xen working on my system. Have a 
> yum-install version working, but will be building xen from source so 
> that I can look at the source code and figure out how things are 
> working/implemented.
>
> I got the book, "The definitive guide to the Xen hypervisor"
mentioned
> in the wiki.
>
> My questions are these.
>
> 1. Is my background enough to figure out basics of xen, and provide 
> meaningful contributions to some components in the Xen hypervisor 
> codebase ?
>
> 2. Are there any must read documentations on the xen wiki or xen.org 
> <http://xen.org> page that will help me get upto speed quick ? I must
> say I am a bit overwhelmed since Xen is a considerable effort and 
> there is a lot of documentation on the webpage.  There is a lot of new 
> terminology that I am bombarded with (pvops, xend, xapi etc).
>
> 3. Are there any projects available to work on currently ?
>
>
> -- 
> Ranjith
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-devel mailing list
> Xen-devel@lists.xen.org
> http://lists.xen.org/xen-devel




_______________________________________________
Xen-devel mailing list
Xen-devel@lists.xen.org
http://lists.xen.org/xen-devel

On Wed, 2012-03-21 at 19:30 +0000, Ranjith Krishnan
wrote:
> Hello, 
> 
> I am a graduate student at the University of Kansas, Lawrence and am
> interested in working on Xen, and contribute towards it.
> I have background in C/C++ coding, and have taken courses in Operating
> Systems, Virtual Machines, Client-Server programming, Data structures
> etc. 
> 
> I am just beginning to get Xen working on my system. Have a
> yum-install version working, but will be building xen from source so
> that I can look at the source code and figure out how things are
> working/implemented. 
> 
> I got the book, "The definitive guide to the Xen hypervisor"
mentioned
> in the wiki. 
> 
> My questions are these.
> 
> 1. Is my background enough to figure out basics of xen, and provide
> meaningful contributions to some components in the Xen hypervisor
> codebase ?
It sounds like it.
> 2. Are there any must read documentations on the xen wiki or xen.org
> page that will help me get upto speed quick ? I must say I am a bit
> overwhelmed since Xen is a considerable effort and there is a lot of
> documentation on the webpage.  There is a lot of new terminology that
> I am bombarded with (pvops, xend, xapi etc). 
> 
> 3. Are there any projects available to work on currently ?
The answers to both of these largely depend on where your particular
interests lie so I''ll start by answering only the 3rd question.

There is a (slightly unloved) list of potential projects at
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_Development_Projects
Also you may find some inspiration in the previous GSoC ideas pages:
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Archived/GSoc_2011_Ideas
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Archived/GSoC_2012_Ideas
and a more raw list of 2012 ideas:
http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2012-02/msg02637.html

You should probably check with the list before investing to much time in
any of these since they may already be in progress.

Ian.