[LUNI] Prolink DC-305 support in Linux

[Eugene Teo]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 08:09:28AM -0600, Martin Maney wrote:
> 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!

Hi there Martin,

> 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.

Where can I get to see the code you wrote for ECC module? Just being
curious and excited to see more new stuffs!

> 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.  :-/

Panic'ng the box isn't fun at all. Probably run VMWARE for it maybe?
My boxes are running different OSes.

> 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.

Nods, took note of this important advice.

> 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. :-)

Materials online? The only one I came across is a document on a 2.1.x or
2.2.x kernel at linuxdocs.org. Is that the document you are referring?

I am familiar with GCC and a little AT&T asm (though I need to read it
up again... been 2 years since I did a little of those to do democodes).
But I do have some experiences hacking qmailadmin and add new features.

Luck, yes. One True Source, definitely!

Eugene
-- 
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