Customer Reviews

Writing Linux Device Drivers: a guide with exercises

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This book was required for one of my Computer Science classes. It does a good job at introducing all the kernel parts, but doesn't go into great detail about any one. It's good for people that are just getting into kernel programming, but I got though the class by using Google and other references that are already out there.

Dr. Cooperstein,

I just wanted to thank you for your excellent book (and lab solutions manual/code) "Writing Linux Device Drivers." I'm in the process of writing multiple kernel modules as part of my thesis, and I've been having a pretty rough time trying to use existing examples or other research given the significant changes in kernel code. Most of the other books I've found either skirt around the issues that seem clearly presented in your book...or they explain them only as clearly as the source code itself.

Other books that do explain things well often present code that will not work with current linux kernels, and it is very tough for someone trying to learn the concepts to adapt obsolete source code...if I knew how to update the code, I wouldn't need to book in the first place. I think I can say this confidently, as I own just about every book about the linux kernel or linux kernel drivers from O'Reilly, Wrox, Novell, Prentice Hall, Addison Wesley, Osborne, and probably a couple I can't think of right now.

Your book is not only well written (and timely for me), but both its content and sample code are directly usable in current linux kernels. I greatly appreciate the simple fact that all the driver code compiles cleanly; that is truly a unique feature at this time...and one that means a lot to someone trying to figure it out. If the online source code continues to be kept to-date with current kernels, your books will be an enduring asset!

Thank you for publishing your books.

This book reads like a course outline used to teach a course. There are 35 chapters, most about 5 - 10 pages each. It begins by discussing driver issues, and devotes one long chapter (18 pages!) to character drivers. Then the book launches into virtually every kernel programming issue such as interrupts, timers, scheduling, ioctls, etc. Yes, these are useful topics for a device driver developer, but I have already seen most of these topics. The author seems to completely lose sight of the goal of this book: Writing Linux Device Drivers. Finally, in Chapter 24 the author gets back to device drivers and does provide 4 chapters on Network Drivers, and one on USB drivers. Block drivers aren't discussed until the very last chapter (9 pages including exercises).

This book can be useful as an outline, a guide to direct your online research (read, Google). But I very much doubt that anyone could write a meaningful device driver using just this book. If you have access to this book, use it as a study guide. But I wouldn't recommend buying it.

It's a pity i have bought this book. It almost duplicates "Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition" book, which you can get for free from it's author's site. It proposes itself to mirror 2.6.31 kernel changes, but it is not so. Some topics a covered very bad. Read Linux Device Drivers first, and then look at this book - may be you'll find 1 or 2 usefull chapters here. 23$ stupidly lost.

I've also came across "Essential Linux Device Drivers" by Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran which I can recomend.

Hello,

If you are a person who don't have connection to computer-science academia.
Who don't work in a lab where environment is set-up and device driver is going on.

Who has bought and read "linux device driver" "essential linux device drivers" and still has not been able to talk-to and hear-from a real
device with your own modules.

Then my friend this book is for you. It knock me off my feet by calling

pci_read_config_word (pdev, PCI_DEVICE_ID, &dval);

Calling it right from _init function. Such simple and obvious way to look into device registers. (special thanks to Dr. Cooperstein)
Nice little walk through the facility which was there because of manufactures complying with pci(standards)

Book is easy to read, fun to work with the code in it, and it will get you talking to devices with in no time.

No disrespect to other books, you can use them later for.... hmmmm I don't know why!!

Do your self a favour, stop torturing your selves and get this book.

Thanks for your time.

If you want to quickly learn the basics of building LDD, then go for it. It has everything that you need, nothing that you want.
I bought this book after reading through "Essential Linux Device Drivers" by Sreekrishnan Venkateswaran that has so much info but not structured or explained well and had me lost and confused about the basics.

This book has some good information but I wish I did not buy this book. This book is poorly written and not worth buying.

Just a few words. This book is great... it combines theory and practice. At the end of each chapter, there are exercises and labs to practice what has been explained. The solutions to the labs can be downloaded from the author's website... and they are even updated for new kernels!

It gives me the newest feature of Linux, with labs to help me to understand. That's what I am looking for!