Synopses & Reviews
Device drivers literally drive everything you're interested in disks, monitors, keyboards, modems everything outside the computer chip and memory. And writing device drivers is one of the few areas of programming for the Linux operating system that calls for unique, Linux-specific knowledge. For years now, programmers have relied on the classic Linux Device Drivers from O'Reilly to master this critical subject. Now in its third edition, this bestselling guide provides all the information you'll need to write drivers for a wide range of devices.
Over the years the book has helped countless programmers learn:
- how to support computer peripherals under the Linux operating system
- how to develop and write software for new hardware under Linux
- the basics of Linux operation even if they are not expecting to write a driver
The new edition of Linux Device Drivers is better than ever. The book covers all the significant changes to Version 2.6 of the Linux kernel, which simplifies many activities, and contains subtle new features that can make a driver both more efficient and more flexible. Readers will find new chapters on important types of drivers not covered previously, such as consoles, USB drivers, and more.
Best of all, you don't have to be a kernel hacker to understand and enjoy this book. All you need is an understanding of the C programming language and some background in Unix system calls. And for maximum ease-of-use, the book uses full-featured examples that you can compile and run without special hardware.
Today Linux holds fast as the most rapidly growing segment of the computer market and continues to win over enthusiastic adherents in many application areas. With this increasingsupport, Linux is now absolutely mainstream, and viewed as a solid platform for embedded systems. If you're writing device drivers, you'll want this book. In fact, you'll wonder how drivers are ever written without it.
Review
"If you are a developer immersed in the bowels of the Linux kernel version
2.4, this is one book you'll likely read until it's ragged..." Emmett Dulaney, UnixReview.com
Synopsis
How to support peripherals or develop new hardware under Linux
About the Author
Alessandro installed Linux 0.99.14 soon after getting his degree as electronic engineer. He then received a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Pavia despite his aversion toward modern technology. He left the University after getting his Ph.D. because he didn't want to write articles. He now works as a free lancer writing device drivers and, um...articles. He used to be a young hacker before his babies were born; he's now an old advocate of Free Software who developed a bias for non-PC computer platforms.
Greg Kroah-Hartman has been building the Linux kernel since 1996 and started writing Linux kernel drivers in 1999. He is currently the maintainer of the USB, PCI, driver core and sysfs subsystems in the kernel source tree and is also one half of the -stable kernel release team. He created the udev program and maintains the Linux hotplug userspace project. He is a Gentoo Linux developer as well as the co-author of the third edition of the "Linux Device Drivers" book and a contributing editor to Linux Journal. He also created and maintains the Linux Device Driver Kit. He currently works for SuSE Labs/Novell, doing various Linux kernel related tasks.
Table of Contents
Preface; Jon's Introduction; Alessandro's Introduction; Greg's Introduction; Audience for This Book; Organization of the Material; Background Information; Online Version and License; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; We'd Like to Hear from You; Safari Enabled; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: An Introduction to Device Drivers; 1.1 The Role of the Device Driver; 1.2 Splitting the Kernel; 1.3 Classes of Devices and Modules; 1.4 Security Issues; 1.5 Version Numbering; 1.6 License Terms; 1.7 Joining the Kernel Development Community; 1.8 Overview of the Book; Chapter 2: Building and Running Modules; 2.1 Setting Up Your Test System; 2.2 The Hello World Module; 2.3 Kernel Modules Versus Applications; 2.4 Compiling and Loading; 2.5 The Kernel Symbol Table; 2.6 Preliminaries; 2.7 Initialization and Shutdown; 2.8 Module Parameters; 2.9 Doing It in User Space; 2.10 Quick Reference; Chapter 3: Char Drivers; 3.1 The Design of scull; 3.2 Major and Minor Numbers; 3.3 Some Important Data Structures; 3.4 Char Device Registration; 3.5 open and release; 3.6 scull's Memory Usage; 3.7 read and write; 3.8 Playing with the New Devices; 3.9 Quick Reference; Chapter 4: Debugging Techniques; 4.1 Debugging Support in the Kernel; 4.2 Debugging by Printing; 4.3 Debugging by Querying; 4.4 Debugging by Watching; 4.5 Debugging System Faults; 4.6 Debuggers and Related Tools; Chapter 5: Concurrency and Race Conditions; 5.1 Pitfalls in scull; 5.2 Concurrency and Its Management; 5.3 Semaphores and Mutexes; 5.4 Completions; 5.5 Spinlocks; 5.6 Locking Traps; 5.7 Alternatives to Locking; 5.8 Quick Reference; Chapter 6: Advanced Char Driver Operations; 6.1 ioctl; 6.2 Blocking I/O; 6.3 poll and select; 6.4 Asynchronous Notification; 6.5 Seeking a Device; 6.6 Access Control on a Device File; 6.7 Quick Reference; Chapter 7: Time, Delays, and Deferred Work; 7.1 Measuring Time Lapses; 7.2 Knowing the Current Time; 7.3 Delaying Execution; 7.4 Kernel Timers; 7.5 Tasklets; 7.6 Workqueues; 7.7 Quick Reference; Chapter 8: Allocating Memory; 8.1 The Real Story of kmalloc; 8.2 Lookaside Caches; 8.3 get_free_page and Friends; 8.4 vmalloc and Friends; 8.5 Per-CPU Variables; 8.6 Obtaining Large Buffers; 8.7 Quick Reference; Chapter 9: Communicating with Hardware; 9.1 I/O Ports and I/O Memory; 9.2 Using I/O Ports; 9.3 An I/O Port Example; 9.4 Using I/O Memory; 9.5 Quick Reference; Chapter 10: Interrupt Handling; 10.1 Preparing the Parallel Port; 10.2 Installing an Interrupt Handler; 10.3 Implementing a Handler; 10.4 Top and Bottom Halves; 10.5 Interrupt Sharing; 10.6 Interrupt-Driven I/O; 10.7 Quick Reference; Chapter 11: Data Types in the Kernel; 11.1 Use of Standard C Types; 11.2 Assigning an Explicit Size to Data Items; 11.3 Interface-Specific Types; 11.4 Other Portability Issues; 11.5 Linked Lists; 11.6 Quick Reference; Chapter 12: PCI Drivers; 12.1 The PCI Interface; 12.2 A Look Back: ISA; 12.3 PC/104 and PC/104+; 12.4 Other PC Buses; 12.5 SBus; 12.6 NuBus; 12.7 External Buses; 12.8 Quick Reference; Chapter 13: USB Drivers; 13.1 USB Device Basics; 13.2 USB and Sysfs; 13.3 USB Urbs; 13.4 Writing a USB Driver; 13.5 USB Transfers Without Urbs; 13.6 Quick Reference; Chapter 14: The Linux Device Model; 14.1 Kobjects, Ksets, and Subsystems; 14.2 Low-Level Sysfs Operations; 14.3 Hotplug Event Generation; 14.4 Buses, Devices, and Drivers; 14.5 Classes; 14.6 Putting It All Together; 14.7 Hotplug; 14.8 Dealing with Firmware; 14.9 Quick Reference; Chapter 15: Memory Mapping and DMA; 15.1 Memory Management in Linux; 15.2 The mmap Device Operation; 15.3 Performing Direct I/O; 15.4 Direct Memory Access; 15.5 Quick Reference; Chapter 16: Block Drivers; 16.1 Registration; 16.2 The Block Device Operations; 16.3 Request Processing; 16.4 Some Other Details; 16.5 Quick Reference; Chapter 17: Network Drivers; 17.1 How snull Is Designed; 17.2 Connecting to the Kernel; 17.3 The net_device Structure in Detail; 17.4 Opening and Closing; 17.5 Packet Transmission; 17.6 Packet Reception; 17.7 The Interrupt Handler; 17.8 Receive Interrupt Mitigation; 17.9 Changes in Link State; 17.10 The Socket Buffers; 17.11 MAC Address Resolution; 17.12 Custom ioctl Commands; 17.13 Statistical Information; 17.14 Multicast; 17.15 A Few Other Details; 17.16 Quick Reference; Chapter 18: TTY Drivers; 18.1 A Small TTY Driver; 18.2 tty_driver Function Pointers; 18.3 TTY Line Settings; 18.4 ioctls; 18.5 proc and sysfs Handling of TTY Devices; 18.6 The tty_driver Structure in Detail; 18.7 The tty_operations Structure in Detail; 18.8 The tty_struct Structure in Detail; 18.9 Quick Reference; Chapter 19: Bibliography; 19.1 Books; 19.2 Web Sites;