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I'm trying to find bugs that needs to be fixed in the Linux Kernel but I don't know where to look. I watched the video "How to Submit Your First Linux Kernel Patch" by Greg Kroah-Hartman on Youtube, but he doesn't really mention where to find bugs that needs to be fixed.

In the video, he briefly mentions mailing-list and looking at TODOs in the kernel code. Does anyone know where I can join the mailing-list? Also, I found the kernel Bugzilla, but according to Kernel.org only bugs from 2.6 are listed there. I actually signed up, but do I just find a bug there that interest me and try to fix it if it hasn't already been fixed on the latest kernel? Does it matter if its already been assigned to someone?

It would be great if I can find a site where a list of all existing bugs are listed, then I can look for something that is low-priority and low-severity. I'm really looking for a bug that is relatively easy to fix, that way I can learn the ropes and work my way up.

Any advice, input, websites to read, etc. from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading/answering. =)

GHe
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  • There are also bugs in 3.x listed in the bugzilla, see, for example, the bugs in Btrfs file system. – Eugene Sep 06 '12 at 07:04
  • I recommend that you don't focus on fixing bugs: instead, first focus on playing around with all possible public APIs, doing useful features for your hardware of interest. You will then stumble upon the bugs that matter to you. – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com Apr 16 '18 at 14:40
  • Check out the regressions mailing list or Bugzilla for more specific ones – vmemmap May 13 '23 at 14:41

1 Answers1

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1. Yes, you are right, one of the places to look is the kernel bug tracker.

Searching the Linux kernel mailing list as well as the subsystem-related mailing lists could also be helpful but is probably more difficult.

2. The main kernel mailing list is here. You can find subscription instructions there.

3. There is also a very useful information about contributing to the Linux kernel and the development process in general in the kernel docs: see Documentation/development-process.

4. If a bug has already been assigned, this does not always mean the assignee is actually going to work on it anytime soon. It may mean that (s)he is just responsible for a particular subsystem. So, I suppose, if you find the assigned bug you would like to fix yourself, you could contact the person the bug is currently assigned to and offer your help. If a mailing list address is used instead of a personal email address of the assignee, you could write to that mailing list, ask if anyone already works on the bug and, again offer your help.

5. One of the ways to see if the bug has been fixed is to try to reproduce it both on the kernel it was reported for and on the latest kernel variant for a particular subsystem. Its is not always easy but still can be very useful to get you into the development process.

Eugene
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