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Linux Device Driver Development Cookbook

By : Rodolfo Giometti

3 (2)

Buy this Book

Linux Device Driver Development Cookbook

3 (2)

By: Rodolfo Giometti

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Linux is a unified kernel that is widely used to develop embedded systems. As Linux has turned out to be one of the most popular operating systems worldwide, the interest in developing proprietary device drivers has also increased. Device drivers play a critical role in how the system performs and ensure that the device works in the manner intended. By exploring several examples on the development of character devices, the technique of managing a device tree, and how to use other kernel internals, such as interrupts, kernel timers, and wait queue, you’ll be able to add proper management for custom peripherals to your embedded system. You’ll begin by installing the Linux kernel and then configuring it. Once you have installed the system, you will learn to use different kernel features and character drivers. You will also cover interrupts in-depth and understand how you can manage them. Later, you will explore the kernel internals required for developing applications. As you approach the concluding chapters, you will learn to implement advanced character drivers and also discover how to write important Linux device drivers. By the end of this book, you will be equipped with the skills you need to write a custom character driver and kernel code according to your requirements.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

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Sections

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Free Chapter

Installing the Development System

Technical requirements

Setting up the host machine

Working with the serial console

Configuring and building the kernel

Setting up the target machine

Doing native compiling on foreign hardware

A Peek Inside the Kernel

Technical requirements

Adding custom code to the sources

Using kernel messages

Working with kernel modules

Using module parameters

Working with Char Drivers

Technical requirements

Creating the simplest char driver

Exchanging data with a char driver

Using the "Everything Is a File" abstraction

Using the Device Tree

Technical requirements

Using the device tree compiler and utilities

Getting application-specific data from a device tree

Using a device tree to describe a character driver

Downloading the firmware

Configuring CPU pins for specific peripherals

Managing Interrupts and Concurrency

Technical requirements

Implementing an interrupt handler

Deferring work

Managing time with kernel timers

Waiting for an event

Performing atomic operations

Miscellaneous Kernel Internals

Technical requirements

Using kernel data types

Managing helper functions

Dynamic memory allocation

Managing kernel linked lists

Using kernel hash tables

Getting access to I/O memory

Spending time in the kernel

Advanced Char Driver Operations

Technical requirements

Going up and down within a file with lseek()

Using ioctl() for custom commands

Accessing I/O memory with mmap()

Locking with the process context

Locking (and syncing) with the interrupt context

Waiting for I/O operations with poll() and select()

Managing asynchronous notifications with fasync()

Additional Information: Working with Char Drivers

Exchanging data with a char driver

Additional Information: Using the Device Tree

Device tree internals

Using the device tree compiler and utilities

Using a device tree to describe a character driver

Configuring the CPU pins for specific peripherals

Using a device tree to describe a character driver

Additional Information: Managing Interrupts and Concurrency

Deferring work

Kernel timers

Additional Information: Miscellaneous Kernel Internals

Dynamic memory allocation

Kernel doubly linked lists

Kernel hash tables

Getting access to I/O memory

Spending time in the kernel

Additional Information: Advanced Char Driver Operations

Technical requirements

Going up and down within a file with lseek()

Using ioctl() for custom commands

Accessing I/O memory with mmap()

Locking with the process context

Waiting for I/O operations with poll() and select()

Managing asynchronous notifications with fasync()

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Using kernel data types

Often, data items of a particular size are required by the kernel code to match predefined binary structures, to hold peripheral's register data, to communicate with userspace or to simply to align data within structures by inserting padding fields.

Sometimes, kernel code requires data items of a specific size, perhaps to match predefined binary structures, to communicate with userspace, to hold peripheral's register data, or simply to align data within structures by inserting padding fields.

In this section, we're going to see some special data types that can be used by kernel developers to simplify their everyday job. In the following, we're going to see an example with fixed-size data types, which are very useful to define some kind of data that is intended to match exactly the structure of data expected by a device or by a communication...

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