Essential Linux Device Drivers

Author: Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran Publisher: Prentice Hall,2008 Pages: 744 ISBN: 978-0132396554 Aimed at: Anybody needing to write device drivers Rating:5 Pros: Comprehensive, modern approach Cons: Expensive Reviewed by: Harry Fairhead            Writing device drivers is arguably the toughest assignment you can tackle. It requires a knowledge of the operating system and the hardware you are trying to interface. In addition you have to master some difficult programming techniques, multi-tasking, interrupts and all manner of real time gotchas. About the only good news is that you can do the whole thing in C and forget about esoteric subjects such as object-oriented programming and software architecture. Essential Linux Device Drivers is a new book that covers a great deal of the inner workings of the Linux kernal, how to write interrupt handlers and drivers. It also describes in great detail how PC hardware and the various standard interfaces work – CardBus, PCI, USB, serial, parallel and so on. This information is of general interest as is the coverage of BIOS calls and other PC hardware. Where it is more specifically Linux-oriented is in its account of sound and multimedia which depends on only on hardware but the software layered on top. This is an up-to-date and fairly complete account using the latest version of Linux (2.6 kernal) and a modern approach. If you need to create a Linux device driver you need this book but it could also be useful if you just need to find out how PC hardware works. <Reviewed in VSJ>

Last Updated ( Friday, 12 June 2009 )