Customer Reviews
Lack of real examples - By: Raed Z. Abu Sanad, 29 Jul 2008 
Hi,
it is thorough in details about drivers, but lacks of examples. There is not any example in the book for a complete driver.
Saved my bacon more than once... - By: Jayden Smith, 06 Oct 2007 
This book is an excellent guide to device driver writing under Linux. Stuck with an unsupported printer? Then there's no reason to delay buying this book & rolling your own driver...
Still an essential text - By: , 29 Mar 2006 This remains the best alll-round introduction to kernel programming where most of us start - writing device drivers.
The third edition has been update to include information on writing VFS/file system drivers: an important update.
The text does remain rather too ia32 centric though.
The book listed at the top is not the 2nd edition. - By: , 15 Jul 2001 Like many people I have been waiting for the second addition to arrive & if you look on O'Reillys web site, you will see it is out now & that the first edition ( which is the one listed here ) is out of print.
The 'Book Description' is about the 2nd edition, but the book, contents & price listed at the head of the page are for the first edition.
... Make sure you order the second edition...
Excellent but dated - By: nhenning@pascall.co.uk, 31 Aug 2000 If you want to learn how to write a Linux driver then you MUST buy this book! It gives a very good background into the workings of the Linux device module system. The text is very readable & usuallly puts (some very complex) ideas across in a manner that doesn't scare the reader off - the multitude of code fragments also help a lot! However, there is one caveat. The book was written at a time when the Linux Module system was in a state of flux. The text is written focusing on version 2.0.x of the kernel but there were some major changes to the structure & some system callls between then & version 2.2.x . There is an attempt, at the back of the book, to outline the new changes (as at version 2.1.43), but these are a bit vague & not many examples are given. Maybe it's not such a bad thing though...The current version of the linux module system as at Version 2.2.x is, I believe, going to be used in the next release. Please, Mr. Rubini, update the text to be more current! If you do I'll buy a copy of the book & recommend it to anyone!
