More information

1 files changed, 30 insertions, 13 deletions

diff --git a/contributing.mdwn b/contributing.mdwn
index 99dd0985..b36d4333 100644
--- a/contributing.mdwn
+++ b/contributing.mdwn
@@ -74,20 +74,37 @@ For more reading resources, please see these web pages, for example,
 documents.
 
 
-## Hacking entries
-
-Here is a list of small hacks, which can serve as entries to the Hurd code for
-people who would like to dive into the code.
-
-* Make pfinet OK with the ethernet device going away. This would be a very nice
-feature: being able to just restart the ethernet driver; we've just not taken
-the time to fix it yet, but it shouldn't be very hard. The code begins at `hurd/pfinet/ethernet.c`, `ethernet_open()`, the `device_open` call, which produces `edev->ether_port`. Basically, one needs to catch errors like EIEIO when using it, and in that case re-open the device.
-* Add a futex kernel trap to GNU Mach. This can be useful for nicer locking primitives, including inter-process primitives. `vm_allocate` can be used as an example in the `gnumach` source tree for how to add a kernel trap.
-* Add a `task_set_name` RPC to GNU Mach. Currently the Mach debugger keeps `arg[0]` from the stack with ugly heuristics. It would be far better to let `exec` simply set the name. `thread_create` can be used as an example in the `gnumach` source tree for how to add an RPC. glibc needs to be recompiled against the updated mach.defs to get access to it from userland.
-* Write a partfs translator, to which one gives a disk image, and which exposes the partitions of the disk image, using parted, and the parted-based storeio (`settrans -c foos1 /hurd/storeio -T typed part:1:file:/home/samy/tmp/foo`)
+## Small hack entries
+
+Here is a list of small hacks, which can serve as entries into the Hurd code for
+people who would like to dive into the code but just lack a "somewhere to begin
+with".
+
+* Make pfinet OK with the ethernet device going away. This would be a very
+nice feature: being able to just restart the ethernet driver; we've just not
+taken the time to fix it yet, but it shouldn't be very hard. The code begins
+at `hurd/pfinet/ethernet.c`, `ethernet_open()`, the `device_open` call, which
+produces `edev->ether_port`. Basically, one needs to catch errors like EIEIO
+when using it, and in that case re-open the device.
+* Add a futex kernel trap to GNU Mach. This can be useful for nicer locking
+primitives, including inter-process primitives. `vm_allocate` can be used as an
+example in the `gnumach` source tree for how to add a kernel trap.
+* Add a `task_set_name` RPC to GNU Mach. Currently the Mach
+debugger keeps `arg[0]` from the stack with ugly heuristics (see
+`gnumach/i386/i386/db_interface.c`, `looks_like_command`...). It would be
+far better to let `exec` simply set the name and record it in `task_t`.
+`thread_create` can be used as an example in the `gnumach` source tree for how
+to add an RPC. glibc needs to be recompiled against the updated mach.defs to get
+access to it from userland. exec would probably call it from `hurd/exec/exec.c`,
+`do_exec()`.
+* Write a partfs translator, to which one gives a disk image, and
+which exposes the partitions of the disk image, using parted, and
+the parted-based storeio (`settrans -c foos1 /hurd/storeio -T typed
+part:1:file:/home/samy/tmp/foo`). This would be libnetfs-based.
 * Write virtio drivers for KVM. Ideally they would be userland.
-* Port valgrind. There is a
-[[GSoC proposal|community/gsoc/project_ideas/valgrind ]] about this.
+* Port valgrind. There is a whole
+[[GSoC proposal|community/gsoc/project_ideas/valgrind ]] about this, but the
+basic port could be small.
 
 <a name="porting"></a>
 ## Porting Packages