Linux Kernel Bootup Process

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-linuxboot/index.html
http://free-7.blogspot.com/2010/10/linux-boot-process.html

Linux Kernel Doc - Help

http://whatisthekernel.blogspot.com/

http://www.kernel.org/doc/
http://web.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html
http://www.nondot.org/sabre/os/articles
http://kernelnewbies.org/Documents/Kernel-Docbooks

Reset Linux passwd ~ by booting in Single User Mode

You can enter single user mode directly after turning on the power to your system. The steps to do this are listed below.

1. Power on your system. Wait for the "Grub loading" message to appear and, depending on your Linux distribution, get ready to hit either any key or the ESC key to enter the grub boot menu.

Grub loading, please wait ... Press ESC to enter the menu 

or

Grub loading, please wait ... Press any key to enter the menu 

2. You will then get grub's main menu which will display a list of available kernels. Use the arrow keys to scroll to your desired version of the kernel and then press e for "edit".

Fedora Core (2.6.18-1.2239.fc5smp) Fedora Core (2.6.18-1.2200.fc5smp) 

3. The kernel's boot menu will appear. Use the arrow keys to scroll to the "kernel" line and then press e for "edit".

root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2239.fc5smp ro root=LABEL=/ initrd /initrd-2.6.18-1.2239.fc5smp.img 

4. A grub edit prompt will appear. Use the arrow keys to move to the end of the line and add the word "single" to the end, separated by a space. Change

grub edit> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2239.fc5smp ro root=LABEL=/ 

to

grub edit> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2239.fc5smp ro root=LABEL=/ single 

5. Press enter to save your changes, and then b for "boot".

6. The system will continue to boot, but will go straight to the root # prompt without first asking for a username and password and now we can reset any passwd.

Basic Linux Hello World Kernel module

Step 1: vi hello.c


#include
#include
#include

static int hello_init(void)
{
printk(KERN_ALERT "Hello World");
return 0;
}

static void hello_exit(void)
{
printk(KERN_ALERT "Goodbye World");
}

module_init(hello_init);
module_exit(hello_exit);

MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2");
MODULE_AUTHOR(RICHIE);


Step 2: vi Makefile

obj-m := hello-kernel.o
hello-kernel-objs := hello.o

Step 3: make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd`
You should see hello-kernel.ko in your current directory, by now.

Step 4: sudo /sbin/insmod hello-kernel.ko

Step 5: dmesg

You should see "Hello World" here.

Step 6: lsmod | grep hello-kernel

Step 7: modinfo hello-kernel.ko

Step 8: sudo /sbin/rmmod hello-kernel.ko

Step 9: dmesg

You should see "Goodbye World" here.

how linux kernel works - Programmers' view

http://www.tuxradar.com/content/how-linux-kernel-works

geeksforgeeks - A Computer Science Portal

A Computer Science Portal
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/

Gr8 db for C/C++ Interview qs!
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/archives/category/linked-list
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/archives/category/c-puzzles
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/archives/category/gfact
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/archives/category/tree
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/archives/category/c-arrays
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/archives/category/articles

Ankit's fav

http://dumpyard.tumblr.com/post/31130051/must-read-software-engineering-books

Humane Computing - The beginning of a new era

Man-Machine Interaction has constantly been evolving ever since machines were invented.It was computers that marked the beginning of an era where machines began to get smart and intelligent. Smarter machines facilitated better ways of communication and this ease of communication attracted even laymen towards them. As these machines evolved they began augmenting human intelligence to provide better and faster solutions to problems.

"The profound technologies are those that disappear"

Machines took up different shapes and forms of real world objects by encapsulating computing prowess within them. These objects have grown in dexterity to learn and understand human behavior. We are in an era where humans have become oblivious to the existence of these computing devices. Interaction among these ubiquitous computing devices provided a platform for setting up the pervasive environment.

The potential of these environments to understand human behavior has been aided by sensors through the advancement of several technologies facilitated by gesture recognition, haptic perceptions, acoustic and phonetic analysis etc. Soft computing techniques using an agglomeration of these inputs are able to react to human behavior by the use of actuators through technologies like iO2, audio synthesis, haptic simulators etc.

The pinnacle of Humane Computing will be a time where machines would be able to understand and react to human thoughts by analyzing neuron impulses in the human brain. At that juncture it will only be a matter of time before we humans loose our hold as the most dominant species on the planet.

Divya M
Shivram R V
Sudharsan C P
V M.Sc. SWE