This practical guide is for anyone who wants to support computer peripherals under the Linux operating system. It shows step-by-step how to write a driver for character devices, block devices, and network interfaces, illustrating with examples you can compile and run. The second edition covers Kernel 2.4 and adds discussions of symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), Universal Serial Bus (USB), and some new platforms. The book is centered on version 2.4, but includes information for kernels back to 2.0 where feasible. Linux Device Driver also shows how to maximize portability among hardware platforms; examples were tested on IA32 (PC) and IA64, PowerPC, SPARC and SPARC64, Alpha, ARM, and MIPS.
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Device Drivers
Chapter 2: Building and Running Modules
Chapter 3: Char Drivers
Chapter 4: Debugging Techniques
Chapter 5: Enhanced Char Driver Operations
Chapter 6: Flow of Time
Chapter 7: Getting Hold of Memory
Chapter 8: Hardware Management
Chapter 9: Interrupt Handling
Chapter 10: Judicious Use of Data Types
Chapter 11: kmod and Advanced Modularization
Chapter 12: Loading Block Drivers
Chapter 13: mmap and DMA
Chapter 14: Network Drivers
Chapter 15: Overview of Peripheral Buses
Chapter 16: Physical Layout of the Kernel Source
Bibliography
Index
