[throwaway_emb]

I followed my subconscious and pursued CS without formal education on the subject, and I did well! I know it's not much but now I have a master's degree! Some of the courses I did better than the ones who had a BSc in CS. I wouldn't have invested so much time and money if I wasn't interested.

For example; now I'm kind of curious about chemistry. I want to learn more about it, but I can't study forever, I need a job.

I DO want to code. I want to code so well that one day maybe I want to contribute to the Linux kernel! But I want to ask you: HOW do you go on about doing that? The degree I have doesn't mean much. I think I might learn more from books than I did at the university, actually.

[nostrademons]

If you want to contribute to the Linux kernel, you may want to start here:

http://kernelnewbies.org/

(Found via Google search on [linux kernel development].)

Start with a small project, maybe just learning how to compile and install your own custom kernel. Then go look for bugs that other people would like fixed but don't have time to fix, and see if you can fix them. There're a bunch of guidelines (that I'm not too familiar with...I don't personally do kernel hacking) to getting your patch accepted, but I think there's pretty substantive mentoring available for new developers. Good luck.

[mmebane]

> HOW do you go on about doing that?

Start small. There are tons of open-source projects that would appreciate help fixing small issues. For example, I've found Mozilla to be very helpful in mentoring developers who are earnest about trying to contribute to Firefox.

And if none of the large projects have any tasks that strike your fancy, pick something on GitHub, fork it, fix a bug or improve some documentation, and submit a pull request. Worst case is you'll run into a jerk or someone who doesn't want outside help, but at least you'll get some experience with the process, and with learning to read other people's code.