On 21/04/2010 11:14 AM, Tharanga Abeyseela wrote:
Thanks Nick. I thought to write a characther driver or a block driver first, then i can move to another level. how about Linux device drivers , understanding the linux kernel book (Orielly), and wrox professional Linux kernel architecture ? iam looking for a book which suits for learner..(step by step guide kind of a document, which explains from the beginning). i wanna right it my own..iam doing this as a pet project.
That's all nice and fine, but you really do need to have a goal when trying to do this sort of stuff, and most of the easy targets have already been dealt with.
Likewise, assess if what you want to achieve can be in in userspace first - coding in userspace is far easier to do, far easier to debug, and teaches you a lot about what it is you're trying to achieve in the first place without the associated headaches of trying to develop for a moving target. Also, if it can be done in userspace, then it probably should be - putting more code in the kernel is something we should be avoiding.
Find yourself something to write a driver for. Learn how the interconnect your peripheral uses works. (For example, You can't write a driver for a USB device if you don't understand the basics of how USB works). Start researching what you need to achieve in the kernel to make it work by reading through the source of drivers for similar deviecs, and trying to match them against any known specifications. If you don't have specifications for the device you're trying to add support for, spend a helluva lot of time trying to capture behaviour or disassemble existing drivers (if permitted via license). Once you've got a pretty good idea of how the bits fit together, go forth and actually write your driver and be prepared to crash your machine a lot. :)
The books can be useful, but they date very very quickly - being able to read through the kernel source and understand what's happening is far more useful.
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