Linux Device Drivers

by Alessandro Rubini

This book is for anyone who wants to support computer peripherals under the Linux operating system or who wants to develop new hardware and run it under Linux. Linux is the fastest-growing segment of the UNIX market and is winning over enthusiastic adherents in many application areas. This book reveals information that heretofore has been passed by word-of-mouth or in cryptic source code comments, showing how to write a driver for a wide range of devices.You don't have to be a kernel hacker to understand and enjoy this book; all you need is an understanding of C and some background in UNIX system calls. Drivers for character devices, block devices, and network interfaces are all described in step-by-step form and are illustrated with full-featured examples that show driver design issues, which can be executed without special hardware.For those who are curious about how an operating system does its job, this book provides insights into address spaces, asynchronous events, and I/O.Portability is a major concern in the text. The book is centered on version 2.0, but also covers 1.2.13 and experimental versions up to 2.1.43. You are also told how to maximize portability among hardware platforms.Contents

Genres: Programming, Technical, Computer Science, Reference, Computers

439 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 1998

Reviews

[Hussein Elsayed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must read book for anyone who is interested to know how things work behind the scene .. it also a very good introduction if you wanna know how to build kernel level modules and device drivers ..

I'm not sure the code in there still can be run under latest kernel versions but the concepts I think are still relevant ..

[Dave Peticolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written exposition of driver development under Linux, this book also makes a nice general introduction to the kernel.