Linux Device Drivers 3e

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J Corbet

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Pages: 636 (Paperback)

ISBN: 0596005903

Pub: OReilly

Pub date: 2005-02-18

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 85876

Editorial Review:

Updated to cover version 2.4.x of the Linux kernel, the second edition of Linux Device Drivers remains the best general-purpose, paper-bound guide for programmers wishing to make hardware devices work under the world's most popular open-source operating system. The authors take care to show how to write drivers that are portable--that is, that compile and run under all popular Linux platforms. That, along with the fact that they're careful to explain and illustrate concepts, makes this book very well-suited to any programmer familiar with C but not with the hardware-software interface. It's worth noting that the emphasis in the title is on "device drivers" as much as "Linux". This book will make sense to you if you've never written a driver for any platform before. It helps if you have some Linux or UNIX background, but even that is secondary as a prerequisite to C skill.
For a programming text--and one concerned with low-level instructions and data structures, at that--this book is remarkably rich in prose. You'll typically want to read this book straight through, more or less skipping the code samples, before sketching out your plan for the driver you need to write. Then, go back and pay closer attention to the sections on specific details you need to implement, such as custom task queues. For coding-time details about specific system calls and programming techniques, count on the index to point you to the right passages. --David Wall

Topics covered: Techniques for writing hardware device drivers that run under Linux kernels 2.0.x through 2.2.x. Sections show how to manage memory, time, interrupts, ports and other details of the hardware-software interface.

Reader Reviews:

Saved my bacon more than once... (0/0 people found this helpful)

This book is an excellent guide to device driver writing under Linux. Stuck with an unsupported printer? Then there's no reason to delay buying this book and rolling your own driver...

Still an essential text (2/2 people found this helpful)

This remains the best all-round introduction to kernel programming where most of us start - writing device drivers.

The third edition has been update to include information on writing VFS/file system drivers: an important update.

The text does remain rather too ia32 centric though.

The book listed at the top is not the 2nd edition. (11/27 people found this helpful)

Like many people I have been waiting for the second addition to arrive and if you look on O'Reillys web site, you will see it is out now and that the first edition ( which is the one listed here ) is out of print.

The 'Book Description' is about the 2nd edition, but the book, contents and price listed at the head of the page are for the first edition.

... Make sure you order the second edition...

Excellent but dated (4/6 people found this helpful)

If you want to learn how to write a Linux driver then you MUST buy this book! It gives a very good background into the workings of the Linux device module system. The text is very readable and usually puts (some very complex) ideas across in a manner that doesn't scare the reader off - the multitude of code fragments also help a lot! However, there is one caveat. The book was written at a time when the Linux Module system was in a state of flux. The text is written focusing on version 2.0.x of the kernel but there were some major changes to the structure and some system calls between then and version 2.2.x . There is an attempt, at the back of the book, to outline the new changes (as at version 2.1.43), but these are a bit vague and not many examples are given. Maybe it's not such a bad thing though...The current version of the linux module system as at Version 2.2.x is, I believe, going to be used in the next release. Please, Mr. Rubini, update the text to be more current! If you do I'll buy a copy of the book and recommend it to anyone!

In-depth coverage of creating block and character drivers. (2/2 people found this helpful)

I've not been happy with some of the O'Reilly books I've gotten lately, but this book is an exception. While there were a few problems that should have been caught in the review, it's a truely useful book. It even looks like the index is functional.

The one thing I wished it had was coverage of the VFS. However, if you need to write a character or block device driver, this book will enable you to do it.

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