Book Image

Linux Device Driver Development - Second Edition

By : John Madieu
Book Image

Linux Device Driver Development - Second Edition

By: John Madieu

Overview of this book

Linux is by far the most-used kernel on embedded systems. Thanks to its subsystems, the Linux kernel supports almost all of the application fields in the industrial world. This updated second edition of Linux Device Driver Development is a comprehensive introduction to the Linux kernel world and the different subsystems that it is made of, and will be useful for embedded developers from any discipline. You'll learn how to configure, tailor, and build the Linux kernel. Filled with real-world examples, the book covers each of the most-used subsystems in the embedded domains such as GPIO, direct memory access, interrupt management, and I2C/SPI device drivers. This book will show you how Linux abstracts each device from a hardware point of view and how a device is bound to its driver(s). You’ll also see how interrupts are propagated in the system as the book covers the interrupt processing mechanisms in-depth and describes every kernel structure and API involved. This new edition also addresses how not to write device drivers using user space libraries for GPIO clients, I2C, and SPI drivers. By the end of this Linux book, you’ll be able to write device drivers for most of the embedded devices out there.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
1
Section 1 -Linux Kernel Development Basics
6
Section 2 - Linux Kernel Platform Abstraction and Device Drivers
12
Section 3 - Making the Most out of Your Hardware
18
Section 4 - Misc Kernel Subsystems for the Embedded World

Chapter 17: Leveraging the Linux Kernel Input Subsystem

Input devices are devices that you can use to interact with the system. Such devices include buttons, keyboards, touchscreens, mice, and more. They work by sending events that are caught and broadcast over the system by the input core. This chapter will explain each structure that's used by the input core to handle input devices, as well as how to manage events from the user space.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Introduction to the Linux kernel input subsystem – its data structures and APIs
  • Allocating and registering an input device
  • Using polled input devices
  • Generating and reporting input events
  • Handling input devices from the user space