Now let's focus on external interrupts and explore how processors identify the occurrence of an external hardware interrupt, and how they discover the vector number associated with the interrupt. CPUs are designed with a dedicated input pin (intr pin) used to signal external interrupts. Each external hardware device capable of issuing interrupt requests usually consists of one or more output pins called Interrupt Request lines (IRQ), used to signal an interrupt request on the CPU. All computing platforms use a hardware circuit called a programmable interrupt controller (PIC) to multiplex the CPU's interrupt pin across various interrupt request lines. All of the existing IRQ lines originating from on-board device controllers are routed to input pins of the interrupt controller, which monitors each IRQ line for an interrupt signal, and upon arrival of an interrupt, converts the request into a cpu-understandable vector number and relays the interrupt signal...
Mastering Linux Kernel Development
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Mastering Linux Kernel Development
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Overview of this book
Mastering Linux Kernel Development looks at the Linux kernel, its internal arrangement and design, and various core subsystems, helping you to gain significant understanding of this open source marvel. You will look at how the Linux kernel, which possesses a kind of collective intelligence thanks to its scores of contributors, remains so elegant owing to its great design.
This book also looks at all the key kernel code, core data structures, functions, and macros, giving you a comprehensive foundation of the implementation details of the kernel’s core services and mechanisms. You will also look at the Linux kernel as well-designed software, which gives us insights into software design in general that are easily scalable yet fundamentally strong and safe.
By the end of this book, you will have considerable understanding of and appreciation for the Linux kernel.
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Current Title:
Mastering Linux Kernel Development
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
Free Chapter
Comprehending Processes, Address Space, and Threads
Deciphering the Process Scheduler
Signal Management
Memory Management and Allocators
Filesystems and File I/O
Interprocess Communication
Virtual Memory Management
Kernel Synchronization and Locking
Interrupts and Deferred Work
Clock and Time Management
Module Management
Index
Customer Reviews