A first dip into OS kernel development with xv6 and the 6.1810 labs (opens in new tab)

I still haven’t settled on what to do next, but for sure I will continue with educational material for now as I don’t have concrete goals to contribute to “real world” projects (yet). I also like having some structured path layed out for me, it makes it easier work on it every other day and not get stuck wondering what best to do next.

As for more serious projects I am interested in and could be a potential follow up to contribute to a bigger kernel, there are SerenityOS and RedoxOS.

I found the instructions for the labs clear and at the right level of detail for me that I did not have questions about what was required for the solution. They have a hints section that really get you started enough in my opinion, sometimes I looked at those a bit too early in retrospect. Then for understanding the part of the codebase that the lab was extending the book was sufficient as extra material for me. There are even lectures online for the 2019 version, but the theoretical side was something I had at least familiarity with before, so I did not watch those.