GSoC with RTEMS first blog

GSoC with RTEMS first blog

My first step towards contributing to the open source community.

Table of contents

Hello to everyone reading this blog. I'm Mohd Noor Aman, and I'm a first-year student pursuing a bachelor of computer applications (BCA) or you can say bachelor in science (computer science). I love tinkering with wire and hardware. [ Although don't short any 2 wire/jumper/pad like me :) ] I've always wanted to be a part of the open source community. During high school, I had decided that when I get myself enrolled in a college, I'll first aim for GSoC. So here's my first step towards contributing to open source and serving the community.

So, what made me choose RTEMS over any other organizations? What's so special about RTEMS that I tried to get familiar with it at the earliest? I had made up some criteria while choosing the org for GSoC in November 2021 when I just got enrolled myself at the college. Some of them were:

  • I could learn more about the Linux kernel. [ I use arch BTW ;) ]
  • They use SoC, micro-controllers, or other embedded ICs.
  • The coding environment and dependency are not too heavy. [ I have a potato PC ]
  • And RTEMS fits perfectly in these criteria. Although technically it's not Linux but it shares some codes from the FreeBSD project which would help me understand some of the Linux ideas. So RTEMS community, HERE I COME!!! Well I'm already a part of the community while writing this. Hehe

    Community bonding period

    During this period, I got familiar with mentors, asked for their input, started to introduce myself to the community, and many more things I did here. This was the first time when I've used emails extensively to communicate with people. Due to this, I've got more logical and conditioned my mind to think out of the box to solve questions that arose while looking through the source code. You might wonder what this has to do with communicating over the emails. That's because over emails, you have to put down all your questions in one go. After that, getting the reply takes a considerable amount of time, sometimes over a day! This made me try and solve my doubts myself before resorting to emailing the community/mentors/devs for answers, and as a result, I'm developing more of a programmer's mindset (。•̀ᴗ-)✧. The feeling of arriving at an answer is extremely rewarding and makes feel like you're Einstein just kidding(>▿<). Although mentors have recommended me that if I get stuck somewhere, it would be better if I contact the community and get suggestions. I'll do my best with that. Although for quick questions I don't have to worry much because RTEMS got a discord channel too. Now, I would like to end my blog with a quote.

    “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

    In my next blog, I'll explain about my project and how to set up debugging environment for that. So stay tuned.....

    --Love from Sodium ❤️❤️❤️--

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