Linux Device Driver Development Cookbook

Over 30 recipes to develop custom drivers for your embedded Linux applications

Key Features:

- Use kernel facilities to develop powerful drivers

- Learn core concepts for developing device drivers using a practical approach

- Program a custom character device to get access to kernel internals

Book Description:

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.

What You Will Learn:

- Become familiar with the latest kernel releases (4.19/5.x) running on the ESPRESSOBin devkit, an ARM 64-bit machine

- Download, configure, modify, and build kernel sources

- Add and remove a device driver or a module from the kernel

- Understand how to implement character drivers to manage different kinds of computer peripherals

- Get well-versed with kernel helper functions and objects that can be used to build kernel applications

- Gain comprehensive insights into managing custom hardware with Linux from both the kernel and user space

Who this book is for:

This book is for anyone who wants to develop their own Linux device drivers for embedded systems. Basic hands-on experience with the Linux operating system and embedded concepts is necessary.

Table of Contents

- Installing the developing system

- A Peek Inside the Kernel

- Working with Char drivers

- Using the Device Tree

- Managing Interrupts and Concurrency

- Miscellaneous Kernel InternalsFinal

- Advanced Char Driver Operations

- (Appendix A): Additional Information on Working with Char Drivers

- (Appendix B): Additional Information on using the Device Tree

- (Appendix C): Additional Information on managing Interrupts and Concurrency onFinal

- (Appendix D): Additional Information on miscellaneous Kernel Internals

(Appendix E): Additional Information on advanced Char Driver Operations