Hacking on legOS

Some people have more of an itch than the rest of us- they really, really want to add features and such to legOS. The next two sections deal with that.

Kernel Internals

Stig Neilsson has written an awesome guide to the legOS kernel, as of version 0.2.4. It covers just about everything you could ever possibly want to know about the kernel, and is a great place to start (other than reading the code ;) if you want to learn about the kernel. You can find it at http://legOS.sourceforge.net/docs/kerneldoc.ps.

Getting legOS Development Versions From CVS

Instructions

A number of folks have asked how to get legOS out of CVS, so here are the basic instructions. These are each separate commands, to be executed at the command prompt.

export CVS_RSH=ssh
export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.legOS.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/legOS
cvs login
cvs -z3 checkout legOS
	

Because CVS works poorly with symlinks, you'll have to add one link, using the following commands (adjust as necessary for your file system):

cd legOS/util/dll-src/
ln -s ../../kernel/lnp.c .
	

More Details on CVS at Sourceforge

If you want to know more about how to set up CVS with Sourceforge, you'll probably want to look at http://sfdocs.sourceforge.net/sfdocs/, which (about halfway down the page) provides a whole list of links about CVS, including basics, more detailed stuff, and CVS with Windows.

Getting CVS Write Access

Getting CVS write access really isn't that hard. The first thing to do is have a patch to add something useful to legOS. Preferably, the patch should apply cleanly against the current CVS version of legOS, and should be well commented. Markus did an excellent job of commenting his code, and new contributors should strive to do the same. Once you've done that, write to the legOS list at lugnet.com, describe your patch, and state that this is only the first in a long and woderful series of patches that will make legOS more stable and ensure world peace :) Additionally, you'll have to register as a developer at sourceforge. Once you've done that, we are normally pretty generous about giving write permission.