device driver development and linux application development

[tennythomas]

Hi,

What is the difference between device driver development and linux application development? Give some examples. Please explain.

Thanks in advance.

[Cabhan]

This is an incredibly broad question, as the two are very different. It also sounds a bit like homework, which is not allowed on this forum. What information are you looking for?

[Rubberman]

Device drivers (except user-space drivers - another subject) require kernel-level development in the C language. A lot of standard functions like printf() and such are not available, although there are kernel versions such as kprint to provide similar functionality. There is a lot of documentation and free e-books available online to help you with this. Application development is all in user-space and there are many languages available to effect this, such as C, C++, Java, Python, ADA, etc. So, in short, kernel module/driver development requires REALLY good C programming skills, and application development can be done in any available/suitable language.