Re: Advice

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Tue, Jul 23, 2002 at 04:44:17PM -0700, Jason Dagit wrote:
> Currently is there any documentation available specifically for people new
> to the hurd?

Unfortunately, the learning curve is very, very steep.  However, there are
many tasks along the road that don't require a full understanding of
everything.  There is very little documentation, I am sorry.  Large
contributions to the Hurd not only require a thorough understanding of
several programming principles, but also a good idea of what the Hurd design
is about (which requires a lot of knowledge about POSIX, but also other
operating system design ideas).

So, the best way is to take it one step at a time.  In using the Hurd, you
will certainly find programs that have not been ported yet.  You will find
small features that are lacking.  You will wonder about why something was
done in a certain way which you might thing could be done differently.  And
then you do some work, or ask some clever questions.  It's a long way, but
useful contributions are not at the end of that way.  They are along the
way, everywhere a step aside of the learning road.

> Also, I've been having trouble getting the latest version from CVS of the
> GNU Mach and Hurd to compile.

We are in the middle of serious mayhem, sorry.  Currently the problems are
in glibc.  I hope we will soon make progress on that matter.

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    marcus@gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/