The second edition is available in book format, CD-ROM format, and a combination of the two. Abrahams and Larson have produced a superior and outstanding revision of their original text. Their writing style is superb, and readers will discover some new or previously overlooked facet of the UNIX operating system every time they open the book. I highly recommend it for every level of UNIX user and administrator. As use of the Linux operating system becomes more prevalent, the desire or need to support existing peripherals and develop new hardware also becomes more important.
Device drivers are the essential interpreters between the device and the applications that use it.
Rubini describes the role of the programmer and demonstrates the process of writing Linux drivers. The book illustrates written code and implementations of the varied types that the reader can test through the examples. Chapter 2, Building and Running Modules, explores the concept of modularization. The author begins his discussion of kernel programming by designing and implementing a char driver that accesses a memory area of the kernel. The programmer can run tests on the completed driver, confirming that the memory area can be accessed.