The Linux Device Driver Kit [LWN.net]

Pointless?

Posted May 25, 2006 13:26 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link]

This includes a book which was freely released in source format, the Linux source code that any driver developer will obviously already have, and built versions of the Linux documentation which, again, any developer would already have.

This seems pretty freakin' pointless.

What third-party device driver developers want in an LDD Kit is a set of documentation that is valid not only for some random snapshot of the kernel, but for all versions of the kernel. i.e., they want a stable API. (ABI is far less important; even pure GPL modules could use a stable API, so they can be shipped to people stuck running older kernels without the driver in the Linux source tree.)

Pointless?

Posted May 25, 2006 13:38 UTC (Thu) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link]

That sounds like a pretty good start pack for anyone who wants to start developping a driver. Also useful to convince management: there's a full CD of documentation available.

Pointless? --- That's the point

Posted May 25, 2006 16:17 UTC (Thu) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link]

Greg is clearly trying to make the point that a "DDK" for Linux is just this ... the sources to the kernel itself and the docs.

You can complain about this tight coupling between kernel internals and drivers all you want. However, the kernel developers have repeatedly considered and rejected the adoption of a stable API for drivers.

So they demand that driver writers and maintainers be agile ... be willing to learn new APIs as the kernel developers improve core parts of the interfaces ... and adapt their drivers to them.

That's really the point because it's the heart of how Linux can offer something better in the future.

JimD

Pointless? --- That's the point

Posted May 25, 2006 20:16 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

So they demand that driver writers and maintainers be agile ... be willing to learn new APIs as the kernel developers improve core parts of the interfaces ... and adapt their drivers to them.

... and hope that the intersection of the set of these people with the set of the people owning the hardware is not empty...

Bye,NAR

Pointless?

Posted May 25, 2006 16:31 UTC (Thu) by salvarsan (subscriber, #18257) [Link]

Hardly pointless.

It was meant to be immediately useful in the plug&play sense,
unlike the book, which absolutely requires you to dig out
the example sources and have the kernel source tree handy.

If you've started from scratch a few times, you appreciate
the value of these niceties, especially since RedHat proliferated
a slew of minor deviations from the kernel.org build process.

rpmbuild is not always your friend.

How much time do you want to waste on build details instead
of testing code? Me, as little as possible.

Third party?

Posted May 25, 2006 20:31 UTC (Thu) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]

That's the beauty of it -- there is no Third Party! You're already invited to the real party. Instead of someone dictating ABIs to you, driver developers can be first-class citizens of the kernel process. Device driver developers and aspiring device driver developers, see you at FreedomHEC in Seattle tomorrow.