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

1. Installing the developing system
2. A Peek Inside the Kernel
3. Working with Char drivers
4. Using the Device Tree
5. Managing Interrupts and Concurrency
6. Miscellaneous Kernel Internals
7. Advanced Char Driver Operations
8. (Appendix A): Additional Information on Working with Char Drivers
9. (Appendix B): Additional Information on using the Device Tree
10. (Appendix C): Additional Information on managing Interrupts and Concurrency on
11. (Appendix D): Additional Information on miscellaneous Kernel Internals
12. (Appendix E): Additional Information on advanced Char Driver Operations

Rodolfo Giometti is an engineer, IT specialist, GNU/Linux expert and software libre evangelist. He is the author of the books BeagleBone Essentials, BeagleBone Home Automation Blueprints and GNU/Linux Rapid Embedded Programming by Packt Publishing and maintainer of the LinuxPPS projects. He still actively contributes to the Linux source code with several patches and new device drivers for industrial applications devices.

During his 20+ years of experience, he has worked on the x86, ARM, MIPS, and PowerPC-based platforms.

Now, he is the co-chief at HCE Engineering S.r.l., where he designs new hardware and software systems for the quick prototyping in industry environment, control automation, and remote monitoring.