Linux Device Drivers Training - Course Outline

Linux Device Drivers

Goal

• Understanding of open source software
• Easy to develop Device Drivers (Linux Kernel has provided the frame work for all kind of devices)
• Development tools, environments and software (C, C++ and assembler are included by default)
• Networking Support

Pre-requisites

• Knowledge of C or C++
• Basic understanding of Linux operating system
• Basic understanding of Networking protocols

Prepares For

• Easy to place in semiconductors/embedded companies (More than 200 companies across India)
• Fast Navigation inside the Kernel source code

Audience:

• Engineering College Interns (CS/ECE/EE/MCA)
• Engineering college pass outs (CS/ECE/EE/MCA)
• Working Professionals in Embedded domain
• Any graduates willing to explore in linux embedded world

Course Structure

• Class Room Duration: 32 hrs
• Lab Duration : 32 hrs

Linux Device Drivers - Course content

• Introduction to Linux
• Features of Linux OS
• RT Linux vs. Desktop Linux
• Architecture of Kernel
• The Boot Process
• Sequence of the Boot Process
• BIOS Initialization
• The GRUB Boot Loader
• Kernel Initialization
• init and /etc/inittab
• Run Levels
• Controlling Services
• File Management Systems
• Structure of FMS
• Super Block
• Inode Block
• Data Block
• Boot block
• Inodes
• Types of Data Blocks
• Directory Structures
• Process Management Systems
• Structure of Processes, User Area Fields,
• Process Information Table
• Paging, Page Sizes, Offset, Region Tables
• Layout of Kernel
• Context of a Process, Register
• Triples Allocating, Attaching, detaching, duplicating, freeing region Process Scheduling and types
• Priorities of Processes
• System Boot, Init process and Kill Signals
• Memory Management Systems
• Virtual and Physical Memory
• Swapping and Paging
• Demand Paging, Page Faults
• Copy on Write bits
• Inter Process Communication
• Client- Server Model
• Pipes, FIFO's, Drawbacks of Pipes and FIFO's
• Message Queues
• Shared Memory
• Semaphores-binary and array of semaphores,
• Socket programming
• Interrupts and Exceptions

• Introduction to Device Driver Programming
• Hardware Basics
• The CPU, Memory, Buses, Controllers and Peripherals, Addresses, Timers
• Kernel Source Code
• Configuring & Compiling the kernel
• Role Device Drivers
• Types of Device driver
• Loadable modules and its benefits
• Functions used to load and unload modules
• Passing parameters to a loadable module
• Writing a Device Driver Programme
• Important Header Files
• Writing a simple module
• Compiling and loading modules
• Device information in /proc
• Strace command
• Ksyms and ksymoops
• Debuggers like gdb, kgdb
• Major and minor numbers
• Creating device files with mknod
• Registering a character device driver
• IOCTL commands to interact with a device
• Implementing IOCTL in driver
• Functions for accessing user and kernel space
• Exporting symbols from loadable module
• Creating stacked loadable module
• Printk for debugging
• MEMORY & INTERRUPTS HANDLING
• Memory allocation with kmalloc and kfree
• Page oriented memory allocation
• Memory allocation in the virtual address space
• Uses of I/O ports and IRQ's
• Platform dependency issues
• Functions used for reading/writing I/O ports
• Interrupt handler functions
• Timer Interrupts, Delay execution techniques
• Task queues, Task Queue operations
• Obtaining the current time
• PCI Interface
• Requirements for Network / Block drivers
• Various network and block driver methods

Project Assignments:

• Writing Modules in kernel space
• Writing one character device driver
• Writing driver for serial interface on ARM based hardware

Reference Books:

• LINUX. DEVICE. DRIVERS. THIRD EDITION. Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro. Rubini, and Greg Kroah
• Linux Kernel Development, 3rd edition . Robert Love
• Understanding the Linux Kernel, Third Edition [Daniel P. Bovet, Marco Cesati

Reference materials Online:

• free-electrons.com/doc/books/ldd3.pdf
• http://lxr.free-electrons.com/
• http://www.makelinux.com/