For years, I saw the Linux Kernel as a complex world that seemed hard to enter. I deeply respected the technology, but the idea of becoming a contributor felt like a distant goal. This year, I decided to change that.
This post is the story of how the LFX Mentorship framework helped me kickstart my adventure as an independent Linux Kernel contributor. My journey didn’t start with a complex driver. It started with a single, simple act: fixing a typo in a documentation file. That small, accepted patch proved to me that contributing was possible and gave me the motivation to go further.
The Decision to Begin
To give this personal ambition a structure, I applied for the LFX Mentorship program. After you get accepted, the program asks you to choose two subsystems to focus on. For me, the choice was a mix of strategy and passion.
I picked the Device Tree subsystem because I had already a lot of hands on experience with it from my daily work; it was a natural fit. For my second choice, I wanted to follow my personal interest in everything related to sound and audio, so the ASoC (ALSA System on Chip) subsystem was the obvious path. When I mentioned this plan to my mentor, Shuah Khan, her response was simple and empowering: “Go for it.”
That was the real starting signal.
What to Expect
The LFX Mentorship is not a classroom. It’s a launchpad. It provides a legitimate reason to dedicate time to the kernel, a high-level goal, and a point of contact in the community. The expectation is clear: the work is yours to do. The real “mentorship” comes from the community itself: the mailing list archives, the detailed documentation, and the rigorous patch review process.
The Real Work: From Typos to Device Tree
After my first few simple fixes, I dove into modernizing Device Tree bindings. This is where the real learning began.
- Expect to read code; 90% of my time was spent reading existing drivers and bindings to understand the standards and the history behind them.
- Expect the review process to be your teacher; The feedback on my first real patch series were intense. A v2, v3, v4… each version taught me something new. The high standards of the community are the best quality filter you can imagine.
- Expect to find your own way; It was up to me to find the specific bugs to fix and improvements to make. This is how you learn to navigate the ecosystem on your own.
What NOT to Expect
Do not expect to be taught kernel development. Expect to be given a space to apply what you already know and to learn the community’s way of working. The initiative must come from you.
The Result: Building Momentum
The real turning point was seeing my first patch series hit linux-next. It was the proof that my process worked, and it gave me the momentum to quickly build a portfolio of over 20 patches. The LFX program opened the door, but stepping through it and turning that opportunity into a real, independent adventure-an adventure that’s just getting started, was the true reward.