Journey summary
When I started the internship journey, I was worried that I may not be up to the task . I wanted to grasp a lot of thing at once which was a difficult thing to do. My first patch series were rejected. I worried I was not doing enough .
After following the advice of my mentor Boqun Feng, I started gaining confidence. I realised I have to learn one subject at a time.
I did not believe myself when I got 30 patches accepted without revision. It turns out that my worry did not come true. I had the best mentor.
How did your Outreachy mentor help you along the way?
The mentor was a guide for me and a friend. I learned a lot from him. At first when I had my first patchset rejected, he automatically requested that I sent him patches first before sending them to the community. I did so and he advised me on which one will be accepted and I follow his advice and understood why a patch is rejected. He often send me some link to article to read , then we have our weekly video call where we catch up.
I would also send him a mail when I felt stuck, he would reply suggesting me a direction to take.
How did Outreachy help you feel more confident in making open source and free software contributions?
Getting into Outreachy internship is not easy as one has to pass the requirement and commit to work on an approved project .
However nothing good comes with ease. The internship was an exciting opportunity, a chance to dive deep into an Open Source project of your interest and get hands on experience.
The project I applied for was titled “Fixing lock related warning in the core Linux Kernel”.
I fortunately did fix many of these warnings and currently commit to put aside some time to continue working on these warnings.
I admit I could not have understood the project without the help of my mentor Mr Boqun Feng, an expert in the Linux Kernel.
I appreciate his help and mentorship. He was a guide for me and helped me understand the Linux Kernel. I really owe him a lot.
Outreachy provides me with this opportunity to dive deep into a project from a newbie perspective to mastering. Outreachy works with experts in Open source to provide mentorship to newbie like me and help us improve our skills.
What communication skills have you learned during the internship?
When sending patched, I interact with maintainers, the social interaction is one of the best part of the internship for me, I improved my communication skills. Also we were required to write blogs of our progress, I felt scared to write a blog as this was y first time ever. I have realised that by writing about a technical subject I master it. I would like to continue bloging on technical topics.
What technical skills have you learned during the internship?
I learned about linked List , Scheduler, Sparse, RCU (this is my favourite subsystem : D)
My project pushed me to dive into compilers with Sparse which I found fun.
What parts of your project did you complete?
The part of fixing lock related warnings, I believe I have fixed all the up to my skills lock warning in the Linux Kernel.
What are my next steps ?
My next steps are
- Thoroughly examine how to solve the remaining more difficult locks related warning problems
- Rewrite and add more technical blogs.
- Build a project.
- Being a Linux Kernel engineer is my final destination.
I just want to say thank you to Outreachy program and to my mentor Mr Boqun Feng.
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