My attempts for Open source development:

Open Source always excited me even before joining college I started finding organizations and events and programs from where I can start my journey.

First one was “Girlscript winter of coding” I participated when I was in 12th standard, it was a lockdown period so luckily I was having enough time to think about these programs as our board exams were cancelled.

Our tasks for GWOC was to contribute to tech documentations but here is my experience:

Experience of GWOC:

  • Networking: I am fortunate to find some amazing folks who were hard core tech enthusiasts, they were into linux and open source. This networking helped me to grow more and it opened doors to different ideas and philosophies.
  • Exploration: I learnt about open source programmes and various tech giants and organizations.
  • Self-Learning: I saw a common trait in all open source ethusiasts. It was “self learning”. They were not dependent on any youtube tutorial or any course. Documentation is a goldmine for any development.

As you can see I didn’t wrote a single line of code or contribution to their repository but that doesn’t mean i didn’t learn anything. My learnings were diverse and more importantly I met awesome people who helped me to shape my future in some interesting ways.

My second and third attempt for open source was GirlScript Summer of coding and Hacktoberfest:

Similar story: I had basic Git/github knowledge but it was not enough to contribute to their repos

No code contribution because open source is not just about coding, it is about overall learinign and developemnt and I feel I learnt something from every program or an event.

Before talking about my journey of being a KDE developer

I would like to share about the year 2022, this year was quite a different year for me. I was introduced to different philoshopies and ideas.

I switched to Linux full-time and by that time I was still a linux noob, didnt know anything about OS except few basic commands and some linux distribution knowledge.

Btw, this was not my first encounter with Linux OS. I was previously involved in it during my ethical hacking course that I took during the end of 2021. During that course, I was experimenting different distributions on Virtual machines, one of them was Kali Linux. Played with tools and commands and tried to put ethical hacking components together to gain experience on metaspoiltable machine. At that time my linux knowledge was restricted to networking and some ethical hacking terms, I was still devoid of its actual power. Later I was introduced to actuall FOSS power when I was shifted to linux fulltime. It was April 2022. 

  •   No virtual machines. 
  Only bare metal.

Now I began using linux as my daily driver; no more GUI/windows dependent human, began exploring about open source and Linux in depth. Secure and highly customizable to suit my needs and requirements.

Its going to be one year but I feel I am using linux since my childhood because it helped me to see beyond a traditional software development process which typically is to

  • learn a lang
  • practice DSA
  • learn MERN stack or any development stack
  • make projects
  • sit for internships
  • finally, a fulltime job.

But NO! LINUX is amazing, it is different. It gives us opportunity to understand our operating system. As cool people would say “Why to create apps when we can create our own Linux Distribution”.

KERNEL! yet Another rabit hole

Kernel development is the most interesting part of Linux Operating system.

Surrounding myself with cool kids who use linux fulltime and rice their systems. They know ins and outs of their system.. When we use linux we dont rely only on software knowledge, we understand the core of an OS “kernel”( kernel programming ), we understand how users can interact with kernel through “SHELL” (shell programming). We understand how various drivers work, how to assemble our PC from scratch. It basically gives us the intuition of embedded systems.

Linux From Scratch is a book that teaches us how we can use building blocks to create a whole structure of an os.

April 2022 - Nov 2022: Explored and played with linux, listened tech talks focused on linux and FOSS communitites, involved in linux communities and distro hopping culture.

I use EndevourOS, an arch based system. I was introduced to it through my friend who is also a fulltime linux user and a tech geek. During my initial stages linux community and forums helped me to understand the basic workflow. Now when I look back I think I’ve gained some experienced to handle linux issues on my own and if not then linux documentation is always available. Go to your distro wiki (for me archwik) and search your issue, there might be people who have already found it and solved that issue. Let them know that you faced the same issue and thank them if their solutions worked out for you.

Lets see my tour of KDE :)

My third and the most serious attempt was for Season Of KDE’23.

FAILING MY ATTEPT FOR SOK’23

I failed because I didn’t know the QT/QML tech stacks in detail and couldn’t keep up with the fast development work that was going on. I was a bit slow because it was my first time trying to fix a bug for such a large codebase. The technical knowledge was not enough as I was a bit slow learner, it took time for me to grasp the KDE workflow and various terms and concepts. I know C++ but it was much more complex than what I have studied. That doesn’t mean I didn’t contributed to KDE, I filed bugs, fixed code and non code bugs. I participated in their discussions on forums and was quite active more than an average user because everything was new for me. It also helped me to improve my technical and formal writing, how to file bugs, how to ask questions, what all steps to keep in mind before asking any questions, how much research one should do before asking in forums, the art of googling, and most of all how to work as a team in an organization.

I applied for Winter of Code and was selected but didnt contribute because I thought I should focus on KDE and GSOC more.

I applied to Winter of Blockchain and successfully got selected in that and currently I am attending their sessions on code contirbutions and web3 and blockchain tech stacks. After attending those sessions I became more well versed with the blockchain world but couldn’t see any scope of contributions so I decided to leave. Btw, check my blog on blockchain to know my ideas on it. I am now minimizing my approach and trying to contribute more to KDE by following some baby steps again.

Will try to contribute to GSOC this year if not selected then also I will gain enough skills to apply to any other program like The linux foundation.

Yes, I am keeping an eye on Summer of Nix program, I hope I achieve some intermediate knowledge on linux before applying to this program. So to improve my linux knowledge I am trying to read ARCH wiki, Gentoo handbook, then will install Void Linux on VM from scratch by reading MUSL and then finally heading to the almighty LFS.

This is my journey which I tried to explain in short, in detail it would go beyond the scope of this blog. I’m still covering the same journey and will continue it until Linus Torvalds sell linux kernel to Elon Musk ;0

CODE contributions: