Where to find linux source code?
Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at
15:34
I am new to software development. As Linux is open source project & open source code can be modified by anyone, I need to know where to find the Linux source code on my machine & how to modify it?
Tagged with: amp • Linux • linux source code • open source code • open source project • software development
Filed under: Open Source
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You aren’t specific about which source code you are looking to look at. You can download source code and patches for the latest Linux kernel (unmodified to run on any particular distribution) at http://www.kernel.org
An easy way to get the source code for EVERYTHING else on the Linux Operating system, is to go to Linux from Scratch at:
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org
because they are a project which aims to get all its users to compile Linux onto their machine from scratch.
To get the source code for X Windows look at the Beyond Linux from Scratch project or go to http://www.x.org
Remember this: the real reason Linux and open source are so cheap is because instead of being the product of one group of developers, most elements are the products of small developers or groups of developers who can afford to spend time on that one project. And in fact very important elements come from UNIX: not just the GNU Tools and X-Windows, which were developed there originally but which have to a large extent shifted maintenance and development to Linux, but CDRTools, which is maintained by Joerg Schilling under a Solaris license (he prefers Sun’s Unix operating system for development), or sudo and vi which both came from BSD Unix.
You can get source code for most of Mozilla’s projects at Oregon State University’s Open Source Labs:
http://mozilla.osuosl.org/pub/mozilla.org/
And in fact another easy source for all the software I mentioned is their Slackware directory at:
http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware/
Hope these help.
download it from their web site. http://www.novell.com/promo/linux.html?gclid=CKGIh72F95cCFRsRagodRAO_DQ
When you install linux on your computer, one option is usually to install the source code. It takes up a fair bit of space to install, but it is, as you said, open source and freely available for viewing and modification. You can modify it with any text editor, (pick your favorite from pico to emacs and anything in between) but you would probably be wise to have some idea of what you are modifying.
There are also lots of options for downloading various linux sources online. Use your favorite search engine to hunt those down.