[LUNI] Prolink DC-305 support in Linux

[Martin Maney]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 11:56:55AM +0800, Eugene Teo wrote:
> Anyone has experience in developing drivers? Or even program
> for the kernel? I saw quite a number of books that talks about
> Kernel Internals, or Kernel APIs. Are these books enough to get
> you started in programming modules or patches? Please advice!

Kernel programming is, most of the time, pretty much the same as any other
piece of C work.  Oh, there are some important differences in what library
functions are available, and sometimes there are issues that you don't
normally see in applications code (though if you work with interacting
threads that share memory and other resources it's not so different).  But
the code I wrote that got into the ECC module, which I understand is in some
of Red Hat's later releases, was pretty uninteresting except, perhaps, as a
small study on the migration of similar code into a single routine, with the
differences being squeezed into nice, tame tables of parameters.

OTOH, kernel programming, even in this case where the code was pretty
mundane, is always more... stimulating, let's say.  Especially after the
first time you manage to panic the test machine all unexpectedly.  :-/

memo: never run untested kernel code, no matter how trivial, on a machine
that's in X.  You won't see the panic report that way.

There are some good books out there, as well as material online.  I would
hope that you have a firm grasp of the C language; depending on what you
want (or need) to mess around with you might need familiarity with gcc's
peculiar form of embedded assembly code and/or the x86 hardware's finer
points.  Where you should best start depends a little bit on what exactly
you wish to do, but sooner or later you'll find yourself reading, at least a
little, the One True Source. :-)

-- 
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
  But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
  You never get rid of the Dane.  -- Kipling on MS Enterprise Licensing