Hi,
I often read on the net from users of the Linux os in particular that they have written a driver for a particular hardware that they want to use in conjunction with a particular flavour/version of Linux. But how they manage to do that so easily (sorry if it is a difficult task) as it seems to me. Hope some one can explain this to me in simple terms, just to satisfy my curiosity. thanks.
Jump to PostDrivers by nature are complex, because they have to talk directly with the hardware in C. For example, on Windows, you don't seem to see very many people writing their own drivers for hardware.
In the open source world however, much of the ground work is done for you …
Drivers by nature are complex, because they have to talk directly with the hardware in C. For example, on Windows, you don't seem to see very many people writing their own drivers for hardware.
In the open source world however, much of the ground work is done for you already. For example, you can take a working driver for hardware that's a similar model to the one you want to write and tweak it a little bit. Knowing the right tweaks can usually be found on the net, given the vast amount of scan codes and such for different devices.
No, I've never written one so I can't tell you exactly how easy or hard it is. But it's amazing what you can do when you share source code. :)
In the open source world however, much of the ground work is done for you already. For example, you can take a working driver for hardware that's a similar model to the one you want to write and tweak it a little bit. Knowing the right tweaks can usually be found on the net, given the vast amount of scan codes and such for different devices.
:)
Cheers mate, very good and easy to understand kind of reply. Brilliant. Thanks a lot.
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