Linux Kernel Newbies website

Submitted by jbreland on Mon, 07/14/2008 - 11:37

I came across a new (to me) Linux-related website a couple months ago that rather impressed me (which is something that doesn't happen all that often). The name of the site is Linux Kernel Newbies, and it's located at http://kernelnewbies.org/.

I stumbled across the site while looking for a good kernel changelog. Most changelogs that I've been able to find discuss the changes in one of three formats

  • List changes/commits made in each release candidate
  • List all individual commits made during the release cycle
  • Briefly summarize major changes or new features

None of these really provided the information that I was looking for. Documenting changes for each release candidate is fine if you're actually using/testing -rc kernels, but it's a pain when looking for changes from version to version because it requires looking through multiple posts or documents. The commit list approach is also fine for the gritty details, but unfortunately the summaries of each change are rather cryptic and often don't mean a lot to people not actively involved in the development. The new feature and major change approach is nice in that it's easily digestible and hits the highlights, but unfortunately it usually doesn't cover enough detail for me.

While searching for a decent changelog that was something in between the detailed commit list and a high-level summary, I found the LinuxChanges page on the Linux Kernel Newbies wiki. This is almost exactly what I've been looking for. They do a great job of describing all of the new/important features of the given kernel release, including providing links to the actual commit records if you really want the full details. They also provide a list of all individual commits,
logically grouped and sorted, which makes it much easier to understand what was changes. Finally, they even cover the highlights of new/upcoming patches are are actively being development for succeeding kernel releases.

The LinuxChanges link always displays the changelog for the most recent stable kernel release (currently 2.6.26 as I write this). Changelogs for older release can be found on the Linux26Changes page.

While the changelog is what keeps me coming back every couple of months, Linux Kernel Newbies also offers a few other useful resources that may be of interest to Linux users, such as the KernelGlossary, FAQ, and Forum. The homepage also provides links to other content on the site.

I don't have any affiliation with the site, and to be honest I haven't spent much time on the site outside of the changelog pages, but even so I found it so useful that I wanted to mention it here. Hopefully some others can benefit from this site as well.