Decode the Basics of Linux with Device Driver Training

Device driver training course is designed targeted engineers who want to enhance device driver in the Linux kernel. The course will train engineers to work on device driver development projects.

You would have come across Windows device driver, which besides providing an interface to the hardware makes assumptions on the probable uses of that particular hardware. A Linux device driver on the other hand is responsible for the interface only and has nothing to do with how it will affect usability aspect of the hardware. Moreover, such drivers don’t play any sort of active part in bestowing graphical interfaces to the hardware. The community of Linux developers actively contributes to create and maintain the Linux kernel source tree, which further serves as the basis of most of Linux supported hardware drivers. Device Driver Training allows students to learn the essential tenets of software programming and hardware’s practical use as well.

A driver is responsible only for providing access to particular hardware or a set of hardware. For doing so, Linux does not rely on any type/s of Application Binary Interface or ABI, a regular feature of Microsoft drivers, to make particular hardware accessible. Application Binary Interface for Linux device drivers is somewhat impractical and useless and you will not find any such interface in Linux. The Linux Kernel and the hardware is not direct accessible from the user space. The kernel has a set of system calls and all the communication from the user space and the kernel space happens through these system calls only.

These system calls serves as a reliable user space interface for myriad applications, which further helps in creation of dedicated modules for device drivers’ creation. While creating these drivers, the modules maintain their separate identity; however, they conform to standardized system calls for serving special functions. Hence, the first thing you need to understand is that device drivers for Linux owe their existence and creation to the kernel tree. Thus, you can insert or remove any or each module from kernel at runtime; however, such actions are subject to kernel configuration which was configured while compiling the kernel.

The users further need to understand the capability and usability aspects. Device Drivers work rather discreetly on the usability front; the drivers do not actually tell you about their probable uses. Hardware devices may further be categorized into three main classes, namely network interfaces, block devices and character devices. While network devices make it possible to exchange data with other hosts through packet transmission, a block device is always accessible in the form of blocks and as such, is quite capable of hosting a file system. A character device, on the other hand, is akin to a file, which further includes serial ports, text console and keyboard. Basically, a character device is a steady stream of bytes or characters. Linux device driver training allows you get a hang of Linux basics.

Further, an open source GNU General Public License (GPL) licenses the Linux kernel, which further facilitates its free availability. After downloading a particular kernel, people may alter, modify or redistribute it further. However, same assumption cannot be applied to Linux device drivers because of their modular nature. Since drivers are modular, they aren’t actually parts of the kernel. But for interacting with the hardware, the driver has to be a part of the kernel, usual process is by inserting it as a module in runtime. The driver needs to have a GPL license if it has to be inserted successfully in the kernel. Some modules or drivers will also have another kind of license "BSD" and some will also have a dual license "GPL/BSD".

The Linux device driver training programs can help a technical student in understanding the system. More information visit our site: www.vectorindia.org

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