Re: Extension to Volume Control & General Questions

[Jordan Saunders <jmsaunders rogers com>]

On Sat, 2005-04-09 at 11:37 +0900, Ryan McDougall wrote:
> 
> Deciding to start hacking GNOME/Linux is a pretty daunting task. I
> suggest you try the #gnome-love channel on IRC, which is designed to
> help people get involved. Also there are some interesting tutorials in
> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeLove and elsewhere.
> just jump in, write some stupid useless app, and have fun! Trying to
> actually get something accomplished right away might be too much. :)
> Heck one easy way to get involved is to write a tutorial for yourself
> as
> you learn, then post it up on the wiki.
> 

Yeah, I know what I'm getting into here. I've been programming for a
number of years now. Previously, I was a graphics programmer but
couldn't get much done because I'm not a very skilled artist and my
intentions were to create something myself. I worked in Windows. I'm
tired of this now and would like help contribute to an application that
has a lot of users, and that could challenge me. My first idea was to
start with hacking the Linux kernel, but I figured that would be a bit
too daunting. My project, the project with volume control, is actually
quite easy and would take me a day or two to do. What I'm doing right
now is trying to get a feel for what the culture surrounding Gnome and
Linux is and how it works. I'd like to be part of this culture.

I've considered the depth of the projects I'd like to work on, and
understand your concern, but I feel it is necessary for me to do
something of real value. This is the first thing that came to my
attention that I could also fix relatively easily.

I've spent the last number of years doing stupid apps. ;)

> Also I agree with Sean, it doesn't sound like a GNOME problem.

I think writing a patch to the kernel would be quite a bit more
difficult, and there was already a patch to address this problem. It was
declined by the ALSA maintainers. I don't want to write another one and
have it declined as well.

> Cheers,
> Ryan

Thanks for responding, I appreciate any help I can get.
Sorry for the verbosity of my post, too. :)

- Jordan