How to understand Linux kernel source code for a beginner?

Posted by Amit Chavan on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Amit Chavan
Published on 2011-02-11T08:51:31Z Indexed on 2011/02/11 15:33 UTC
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kernel

Hi, I am a student interested in working on Memory Management, particularly the page replacement component of the linux kernel. What are the different guides that can help me to begin understanding the kernel source? I have tried to read the book Understanding the Linux Virutal Memory Manager by Mel Gorman and Understanding the Linux Kernel by Cesati and Bovet, but they do not explain the flow of control through the code. They only end up explaining various data structures used and the work various functions perform. This makes the code more confusing.

My project deals with tweaking the page replacement algorithm in a mainstream kernel and analyse its performance for a set of workloads. Is there a flavor of the linux kernel that would be easier to understand(if not the linux-2.6.xx kernel)?

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