• SESSION 2:  Kernel and Device Drivers
  • Components of the Kernel
  • User Space vs. Kernel Space
  • Advantage of Device Drivers
  • Types of Devices

• SESSION 3:  Linux Kernel: Sources and Installation
  • Installing the Kernel Source
  • Layout of the Kernel Source
  • Starting the Kernel
  • lilo and Boot-up Sequence
  • Configuring and Installing the Kernel

• SESSION 4: Linux Kernel: Methods
  • System Calls vs. Library Functions
  • How System Calls are Made
  • Scheduling Algorithms
  • The task_struct
  • Signaling
  • IPC: Message Queues, Semaphores and Shared Memory
  • Locking Mechanisms

• SESSION 5: Linux Kernel: SMP and Threads
  • Configuring SMP Kernels and Modules
  • Initialization
  • SMP Algorithms: Scheduling, Locking, etc.
  • Multi-threading under Linux

• SESSION 6: Modules
  • What is a Module?
  • Module Utilities
  • Compiling a Module
  • Loading a Module
  • Unloading a Module
  • Kernel Versions
  • Exporting Symbols
  • System Calls From Modules
  • A Trivial Example: Hello World

• SESSION 7: Debugging Techniques
  • Error Numbers
  • printk
  • Querying the Driver
  • Proc Entry
  • Tracing
  • Debuggers and kdb

• SESSION 8: Character Devices
  • Device Nodes
  • Accessing the Device Node
  • Registering the Driver
  • file_operations Structure
  • Driver Entry Points
  • The file Structure
  • The inode Structure
  • Module Usage Count

• SESSION 9: Advanced Modularization
  • Automatic Loading/Unloading of Modules
  • Kernel Drivers
  • Persistence of Data Across Loads/Unloads
  • Version Control

• SESSION 10: Memory Management
  • Virtual and Physical Memory
  • Page Tables, Caching, Swapping
  • Block Buffering
  • Mapping Functions

• SESSION 11: User <-> Kernel Space
  • put(get)_usr and copy_to(from)_user

• SESSION 12: Memory Allocation
  • kmalloc and kfree
  • Allocating pages at a time
  • vmalloc and vfree

• SESSION 13: IOCTLS
  • What are ioctls?
  • Calling ioctls
  • Driver Entry point for Ioctls
  • Defining Ioctls

• SESSION 14: Time Management
  • Jiffies
  • Inserting Delays
  • Wait Queues
  • Task Queues
  • Kernel Timers

• SESSION 15: I/O PORTS
  • Registering I/O Ports
  • Reading and Writing Data from Hardware
  • Slowing I/O calls to the hardware
  • Accessing from User Space: ioperm, iopl

• SESSION 16: PCI/ISA
  • What is PCI?
  • PCI Functions
  • Accessing Configuration Space
  • Reading and Writing to Memory Mapped Devices

• SESSION 17: Interrupt Handling
  • What are Interrupts?
  • Installing an Interrupt Handler
  • Enabling/Disabling Interrupts
  • Auto-detecting IRQs
  • Interrupt Handlers

• SESSION 18: Direct Memory Access (DMA)
  • What is DMA?
  • DMA under ISA
  • DMA under PCI

• SESSION 19: Filesystems
  • Virtual File Systems
  • Available Filesystems under Linux
  • Mounting Filesystems
  • The ext2 Filesystem

• SESSION 20: Block Drivers
  • What are block drivers?
  • Registering a Block Driver
  • Parameter Arrays
  • blk.h
  • Drivers Request Broker
  • Request Handling
  • Removable Media Devices
  • Partitionable Devices

• SESSION 21:  Introduction to Network Drivers
  • Network Drivers
  • Loading/Unloading
  • device Structure
  • sk_buff Structure
  • Transmitting Data
  • Receiving Data
  • Statistics

LINUX DEVICE DRIVERS AND KERNEL