Linux Device Driver Programming

Developing Linux Device Drivers is designed to show experienced programmers how to develop device drivers for Linux systems, and give them a basic understanding and familiarity with the Linux kernel. Upon mastering this material, you will be familiar with the different kinds of device drivers used under Linux, and know the appropriate API's through which devices (both hard and soft) interface with the kernel. This 4 weeks course includes extensive hands-on exercises and demonstrations designed to give you the necessary tools to develop Linux device drivers.You'll examine the unique problems of debugging in Kernel space. Perhaps most important, you'll see how much of a device driver involves interactions with the kernel that have nothing to do with accessing physical hardware. Although the exercises are carried out on a PC, much of the code is easily ported to other architectures supported by Linux.

Syllabus

Parallel Port LCD Userspace Access

Parallel Port LED Userspace Access

Loading and Unloading

Module Parameters

Hello World Module

Module Programming vs Application Programming

Writing Kernel Modules

File Operations Structure

File Structure

Parallel Port LCD Driver

Major and Minor Numbers

Debugging System Faults

Debugging Techniques

Recovering from a System Hang

Debugfs

Kernel Log Mechanism

Rate Limiting

Atomic Variables

Interrupts

Semaphores

Common Locking Problems

Advanced Character I/O

Implementing ioctl

Blocking I/O

Char driver to transmit and receive serial data