A Simple Linux Device Driver

[GeorgeOfTheBush]

Hi

I am a newbie to the world of Linux Device Drivers & have understood some basic concepts of device drivers & interrupts. I would like to start off writing a simple device driver for a device, say for example, a serial port (uart).

How do I proceed?
Is serial port the correct choice to start learning about device drivers or should I start with some other device?
What would be the hardware and software requirements?
Any website links that would be helpful?

Any pointers in this direction would be very helpful to me and lots of other newbies like me.

Thanks a ton for your suggestions and advice!

[GNU-Fan]

Hi
How do I proceed?

You read this book.
Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition [LWN.net]

Hi
Is serial port the correct choice to start learning about device drivers or should I start with some other device?

Serial port is a good start.
Although I enjoyed programming graphics hardware more, and it is easy to start with as well.

What would be the hardware and software requirements?

Nothing special. Any major GNU/Linux distribution should have the necessary tools.
More computing power decreases the compiling time and a serial port would be helpful though

For you next purchases, pay special attention if the manufacturer documents its hardware properly and for the public. NVIDIA is a no-go, but most Intel hardware is well documented, so programming it is always much fun.

Any pointers in this direction would be very helpful to me and lots of other newbies like me.

Have a visit to the website kernelnewbies.org

[rjayavrp]

Hi friends

Im also new to driver devlopment. im doing drivers for char devices. previously i had Fedora 2 for my devlopment.

now i shifted to FC 9. but the problem is kernel source.
kernel source is not available by default. then i installed kernel source RPM.

while installing RPM, it says RPM is already installed.

i forced to install the RPM, and the result is FC crashed.

help me in this.

[liying_gg]

I think you must reinstall the system.

[rjayavrp]

ya anyway am going to re-install. my need is to know kernel source location.

i tried with "locate linux.h"

but error comes like "can't open file mlocate.XXX"

[liying_gg]

ya anyway am going to re-install. my need is to know kernel source location.

i tried with "locate linux.h"

but error comes like "can't open file mlocate.XXX"

located in /lib/modules/

[coopstah13]

linux.h doesn't exist in kernel source