-
- Index of Documentation for People Interested in Writing and/or
-
- Understanding the Linux Kernel.
+Index of Documentation for People Interested in Writing and/or Understanding the Linux Kernel
+=============================================================================================
Juan-Mariano de Goyeneche <jmseyas@dit.upm.es>
-/*
- * The latest version of this document may be found at:
- * http://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html
- */
-
- The need for a document like this one became apparent in the
- linux-kernel mailing list as the same questions, asking for pointers
- to information, appeared again and again.
-
- Fortunately, as more and more people get to GNU/Linux, more and more
- get interested in the Kernel. But reading the sources is not always
- enough. It is easy to understand the code, but miss the concepts, the
- philosophy and design decisions behind this code.
-
- Unfortunately, not many documents are available for beginners to
- start. And, even if they exist, there was no "well-known" place which
- kept track of them. These lines try to cover this lack. All documents
- available on line known by the author are listed, while some reference
- books are also mentioned.
-
- PLEASE, if you know any paper not listed here or write a new document,
- send me an e-mail, and I'll include a reference to it here. Any
- corrections, ideas or comments are also welcomed.
-
- The papers that follow are listed in no particular order. All are
- cataloged with the following fields: the document's "Title", the
- "Author"/s, the "URL" where they can be found, some "Keywords" helpful
- when searching for specific topics, and a brief "Description" of the
- Document.
-
- Enjoy!
-
- ON-LINE DOCS:
-
- * Title: "Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition"
- Author: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, Greg Kroah-Hartman
- URL: http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
- Description: A 600-page book covering the (2.6.10) driver
- programming API and kernel hacking in general. Available under the
- Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
-
- * Title: "The Linux Kernel"
- Author: David A. Rusling.
- URL: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/tlk/tlk.html
- Keywords: everything!, book.
- Description: On line, 200 pages book describing most aspects of
- the Linux Kernel. Probably, the first reference for beginners.
- Lots of illustrations explaining data structures use and
- relationships in the purest Richard W. Stevens' style. Contents:
- "1.-Hardware Basics, 2.-Software Basics, 3.-Memory Management,
- 4.-Processes, 5.-Interprocess Communication Mechanisms, 6.-PCI,
- 7.-Interrupts and Interrupt Handling, 8.-Device Drivers, 9.-The
- File system, 10.-Networks, 11.-Kernel Mechanisms, 12.-Modules,
- 13.-The Linux Kernel Sources, A.-Linux Data Structures, B.-The
- Alpha AXP Processor, C.-Useful Web and FTP Sites, D.-The GNU
- General Public License, Glossary". In short: a must have.
-
- * Title: "Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition"
- Author: Alessandro Rubini and Jonathan Corbet.
- URL: http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/index.html
- Keywords: device drivers, modules, debugging, memory, hardware,
- interrupt handling, char drivers, block drivers, kmod, mmap, DMA,
- buses.
- Description: O'Reilly's popular book, now also on-line under the
- GNU Free Documentation License.
- Notes: You can also buy it in paper-form from O'Reilly. See below
- under BOOKS (Not on-line).
-
- * Title: "Conceptual Architecture of the Linux Kernel"
- Author: Ivan T. Bowman.
- URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
- Keywords: conceptual software architecture, extracted design,
- reverse engineering, system structure.
- Description: Conceptual software architecture of the Linux kernel,
- automatically extracted from the source code. Very detailed. Good
- figures. Gives good overall kernel understanding.
-
- * Title: "Concrete Architecture of the Linux Kernel"
- Author: Ivan T. Bowman, Saheem Siddiqi, and Meyer C. Tanuan.
- URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
- Keywords: concrete architecture, extracted design, reverse
- engineering, system structure, dependencies.
- Description: Concrete architecture of the Linux kernel,
- automatically extracted from the source code. Very detailed. Good
- figures. Gives good overall kernel understanding. This papers
- focus on lower details than its predecessor (files, variables...).
-
- * Title: "Linux as a Case Study: Its Extracted Software
- Architecture"
- Author: Ivan T. Bowman, Richard C. Holt and Neil V. Brewster.
- URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
- Keywords: software architecture, architecture recovery,
- redocumentation.
- Description: Paper appeared at ICSE'99, Los Angeles, May 16-22,
- 1999. A mixture of the previous two documents from the same
- author.
-
- * Title: "Overview of the Virtual File System"
- Author: Richard Gooch.
- URL: http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
- Keywords: VFS, File System, mounting filesystems, opening files,
- dentries, dcache.
- Description: Brief introduction to the Linux Virtual File System.
- What is it, how it works, operations taken when opening a file or
- mounting a file system and description of important data
- structures explaining the purpose of each of their entries.
-
- * Title: "The Linux RAID-1, 4, 5 Code"
- Author: Ingo Molnar, Gadi Oxman and Miguel de Icaza.
- URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2391
- Keywords: RAID, MD driver.
- Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- abstract: "A description of the implementation of the RAID-1,
- RAID-4 and RAID-5 personalities of the MD device driver in the
- Linux kernel, providing users with high performance and reliable,
- secondary-storage capability using software".
-
- * Title: "Dynamic Kernels: Modularized Device Drivers"
- Author: Alessandro Rubini.
- URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1219
- Keywords: device driver, module, loading/unloading modules,
- allocating resources.
- Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- abstract: "This is the first of a series of four articles
- co-authored by Alessandro Rubini and Georg Zezchwitz which present
- a practical approach to writing Linux device drivers as kernel
- loadable modules. This installment presents an introduction to the
- topic, preparing the reader to understand next month's
- installment".
-
- * Title: "Dynamic Kernels: Discovery"
- Author: Alessandro Rubini.
- URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1220
- Keywords: character driver, init_module, clean_up module,
- autodetection, mayor number, minor number, file operations,
- open(), close().
- Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- abstract: "This article, the second of four, introduces part of
- the actual code to create custom module implementing a character
- device driver. It describes the code for module initialization and
- cleanup, as well as the open() and close() system calls".
-
- * Title: "The Devil's in the Details"
- Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz and Alessandro Rubini.
- URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1221
- Keywords: read(), write(), select(), ioctl(), blocking/non
- blocking mode, interrupt handler.
- Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- abstract: "This article, the third of four on writing character
- device drivers, introduces concepts of reading, writing, and using
- ioctl-calls".
-
- * Title: "Dissecting Interrupts and Browsing DMA"
- Author: Alessandro Rubini and Georg v. Zezschwitz.
- URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1222
- Keywords: interrupts, irqs, DMA, bottom halves, task queues.
- Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
- abstract: "This is the fourth in a series of articles about
- writing character device drivers as loadable kernel modules. This
- month, we further investigate the field of interrupt handling.
- Though it is conceptually simple, practical limitations and
- constraints make this an ``interesting'' part of device driver
- writing, and several different facilities have been provided for
- different situations. We also investigate the complex topic of
- DMA".
-
- * Title: "Device Drivers Concluded"
- Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz.
- URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1287
- Keywords: address spaces, pages, pagination, page management,
- demand loading, swapping, memory protection, memory mapping, mmap,
- virtual memory areas (VMAs), vremap, PCI.
- Description: Finally, the above turned out into a five articles
- series. This latest one's introduction reads: "This is the last of
- five articles about character device drivers. In this final
- section, Georg deals with memory mapping devices, beginning with
- an overall description of the Linux memory management concepts".
-
- * Title: "Network Buffers And Memory Management"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1312
- Keywords: sk_buffs, network devices, protocol/link layer
- variables, network devices flags, transmit, receive,
- configuration, multicast.
- Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner. Here is the abstract:
- "Writing a network device driver for Linux is fundamentally
- simple---most of the complexity (other than talking to the
- hardware) involves managing network packets in memory".
-
- * Title: "Linux Kernel Hackers' Guide"
- Author: Michael K. Johnson.
- URL: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/khg/HyperNews/get/khg.html
- Keywords: device drivers, files, VFS, kernel interface, character vs
- block devices, hardware interrupts, scsi, DMA, access to user memory,
- memory allocation, timers.
- Description: A guide designed to help you get up to speed on the
- concepts that are not intuitevly obvious, and to document the internal
- structures of Linux.
-
- * Title: "The Venus kernel interface"
- Author: Peter J. Braam.
- URL:
- http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/html/kernel-venus-protocol.html
- Keywords: coda, filesystem, venus, cache manager.
- Description: "This document describes the communication between
- Venus and kernel level file system code needed for the operation
- of the Coda filesystem. This version document is meant to describe
- the current interface (version 1.0) as well as improvements we
- envisage".
-
- * Title: "Programming PCI-Devices under Linux"
- Author: Claus Schroeter.
- URL:
- ftp://ftp.llp.fu-berlin.de/pub/linux/LINUX-LAB/whitepapers/pcip.ps.gz
- Keywords: PCI, device, busmastering.
- Description: 6 pages tutorial on PCI programming under Linux.
- Gives the basic concepts on the architecture of the PCI subsystem,
- as long as basic functions and macros to read/write the devices
- and perform busmastering.
-
- * Title: "Writing Character Device Driver for Linux"
- Author: R. Baruch and C. Schroeter.
- URL:
- ftp://ftp.llp.fu-berlin.de/pub/linux/LINUX-LAB/whitepapers/drivers.ps.gz
- Keywords: character device drivers, I/O, signals, DMA, accessing
- ports in user space, kernel environment.
- Description: 68 pages paper on writing character drivers. A little
- bit old (1.993, 1.994) although still useful.
-
- * Title: "Design and Implementation of the Second Extended
- Filesystem"
- Author: Rémy Card, Theodore Ts'o, Stephen Tweedie.
- URL: http://web.mit.edu/tytso/www/linux/ext2intro.html
- Keywords: ext2, linux fs history, inode, directory, link, devices,
- VFS, physical structure, performance, benchmarks, ext2fs library,
- ext2fs tools, e2fsck.
- Description: Paper written by three of the top ext2 hackers.
- Covers Linux filesystems history, ext2 motivation, ext2 features,
- design, physical structure on disk, performance, benchmarks,
- e2fsck's passes description... A must read!
- Notes: This paper was first published in the Proceedings of the
- First Dutch International Symposium on Linux, ISBN 90-367-0385-9.
-
- * Title: "Analysis of the Ext2fs structure"
- Author: Louis-Dominique Dubeau.
- URL: http://teaching.csse.uwa.edu.au/units/CITS2002/fs-ext2/
- Keywords: ext2, filesystem, ext2fs.
- Description: Description of ext2's blocks, directories, inodes,
- bitmaps, invariants...
-
- * Title: "Journaling the Linux ext2fs Filesystem"
- Author: Stephen C. Tweedie.
- URL:
- ftp://ftp.uk.linux.org/pub/linux/sct/fs/jfs/journal-design.ps.gz
- Keywords: ext3, journaling.
- Description: Excellent 8-pages paper explaining the journaling
- capabilities added to ext2 by the author, showing different
- problems faced and the alternatives chosen.
-
- * Title: "Kernel API changes from 2.0 to 2.2"
- Author: Richard Gooch.
- URL: http://www.safe-mbox.com/~rgooch/linux/docs/porting-to-2.2.html
- Keywords: 2.2, changes.
- Description: Kernel functions/structures/variables which changed
- from 2.0.x to 2.2.x.
-
- * Title: "Kernel API changes from 2.2 to 2.4"
- Author: Richard Gooch.
- URL: http://www.safe-mbox.com/~rgooch/linux/docs/porting-to-2.4.html
- Keywords: 2.4, changes.
- Description: Kernel functions/structures/variables which changed
- from 2.2.x to 2.4.x.
-
- * Title: "Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide"
- Author: Ori Pomerantz.
- URL: http://tldp.org/LDP/lkmpg/2.6/html/index.html
- Keywords: modules, GPL book, /proc, ioctls, system calls,
- interrupt handlers .
- Description: Very nice 92 pages GPL book on the topic of modules
- programming. Lots of examples.
-
- * Title: "I/O Event Handling Under Linux"
- Author: Richard Gooch.
- Keywords: IO, I/O, select(2), poll(2), FDs, aio_read(2), readiness
- event queues.
- Description: From the Introduction: "I/O Event handling is about
- how your Operating System allows you to manage a large number of
- open files (file descriptors in UNIX/POSIX, or FDs) in your
- application. You want the OS to notify you when FDs become active
- (have data ready to be read or are ready for writing). Ideally you
- want a mechanism that is scalable. This means a large number of
- inactive FDs cost very little in memory and CPU time to manage".
-
- * Title: "The Kernel Hacking HOWTO"
- Author: Various Talented People, and Rusty.
- Location: in kernel tree, Documentation/DocBook/kernel-hacking.tmpl
- (must be built as "make {htmldocs | psdocs | pdfdocs})
- Keywords: HOWTO, kernel contexts, deadlock, locking, modules,
- symbols, return conventions.
- Description: From the Introduction: "Please understand that I
- never wanted to write this document, being grossly underqualified,
- but I always wanted to read it, and this was the only way. I
- simply explain some best practices, and give reading entry-points
- into the kernel sources. I avoid implementation details: that's
- what the code is for, and I ignore whole tracts of useful
- routines. This document assumes familiarity with C, and an
- understanding of what the kernel is, and how it is used. It was
- originally written for the 2.3 kernels, but nearly all of it
- applies to 2.2 too; 2.0 is slightly different".
-
- * Title: "Writing an ALSA Driver"
- Author: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
- URL: http://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/writing-an-alsa-driver/index.html
- Keywords: ALSA, sound, soundcard, driver, lowlevel, hardware.
- Description: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture for developers,
- both at kernel and user-level sides. ALSA is the Linux kernel
- sound architecture in the 2.6 kernel version.
-
- * Title: "Programming Guide for Linux USB Device Drivers"
- Author: Detlef Fliegl.
- URL: http://usb.in.tum.de/usbdoc/
- Keywords: USB, universal serial bus.
- Description: A must-read. From the Preface: "This document should
- give detailed information about the current state of the USB
- subsystem and its API for USB device drivers. The first section
- will deal with the basics of USB devices. You will learn about
- different types of devices and their properties. Going into detail
- you will see how USB devices communicate on the bus. The second
- section gives an overview of the Linux USB subsystem [2] and the
- device driver framework. Then the API and its data structures will
- be explained step by step. The last section of this document
- contains a reference of all API calls and their return codes".
- Notes: Beware: the main page states: "This document may not be
- published, printed or used in excerpts without explicit permission
- of the author". Fortunately, it may still be read...
-
- * Title: "Linux Kernel Mailing List Glossary"
- Author: various
- URL: http://kernelnewbies.org/glossary/
- Keywords: glossary, terms, linux-kernel.
- Description: From the introduction: "This glossary is intended as
- a brief description of some of the acronyms and terms you may hear
- during discussion of the Linux kernel".
-
- * Title: "Linux Kernel Locking HOWTO"
- Author: Various Talented People, and Rusty.
- Location: in kernel tree, Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl
- (must be built as "make {htmldocs | psdocs | pdfdocs})
- Keywords: locks, locking, spinlock, semaphore, atomic, race
- condition, bottom halves, tasklets, softirqs.
- Description: The title says it all: document describing the
- locking system in the Linux Kernel either in uniprocessor or SMP
- systems.
- Notes: "It was originally written for the later (>2.3.47) 2.3
- kernels, but most of it applies to 2.2 too; 2.0 is slightly
- different". Freely redistributable under the conditions of the GNU
- General Public License.
-
- * Title: "Global spinlock list and usage"
- Author: Rick Lindsley.
- URL: http://lse.sourceforge.net/lockhier/global-spin-lock
- Keywords: spinlock.
- Description: This is an attempt to document both the existence and
- usage of the spinlocks in the Linux 2.4.5 kernel. Comprehensive
- list of spinlocks showing when they are used, which functions
- access them, how each lock is acquired, under what conditions it
- is held, whether interrupts can occur or not while it is held...
-
- * Title: "Porting Linux 2.0 Drivers To Linux 2.2: Changes and New
- Features "
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/1999-05/gear_01.html
- Keywords: ports, porting.
- Description: Article from Linux Magazine on porting from 2.0 to
- 2.2 kernels.
-
- * Title: "Porting Device Drivers To Linux 2.2: part II"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/238
- Keywords: ports, porting.
- Description: Second part on porting from 2.0 to 2.2 kernels.
-
- * Title: "How To Make Sure Your Driver Will Work On The Power
- Macintosh"
- Author: Paul Mackerras.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/261
- Keywords: Mac, Power Macintosh, porting, drivers, compatibility.
- Description: The title says it all.
-
- * Title: "An Introduction to SCSI Drivers"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/284
- Keywords: SCSI, device, driver.
- Description: The title says it all.
-
- * Title: "Advanced SCSI Drivers And Other Tales"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/307
- Keywords: SCSI, device, driver, advanced.
- Description: The title says it all.
-
- * Title: "Writing Linux Mouse Drivers"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/330
- Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm.
- Description: The title says it all.
-
- * Title: "More on Mouse Drivers"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/356
- Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm, races, asynchronous I/O.
- Description: The title still says it all.
-
- * Title: "Writing Video4linux Radio Driver"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/381
- Keywords: video4linux, driver, radio, radio devices.
- Description: The title says it all.
-
- * Title: "Video4linux Drivers, Part 1: Video-Capture Device"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/406
- Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
- camera driver.
- Description: The title says it all.
-
- * Title: "Video4linux Drivers, Part 2: Video-capture Devices"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/429
- Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
- camera driver, control, query capabilities, capability, facility.
- Description: The title says it all.
-
- * Title: "PCI Management in Linux 2.2"
- Author: Alan Cox.
- URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/452
- Keywords: PCI, bus, bus-mastering.
- Description: The title says it all.
-
- * Title: "Linux 2.4 Kernel Internals"
- Author: Tigran Aivazian and Christoph Hellwig.
- URL: http://www.moses.uklinux.net/patches/lki.html
- Keywords: Linux, kernel, booting, SMB boot, VFS, page cache.
- Description: A little book used for a short training course.
- Covers building the kernel image, booting (including SMP bootup),
- process management, VFS and more.
-
- * Title: "Linux IP Networking. A Guide to the Implementation and
- Modification of the Linux Protocol Stack."
- Author: Glenn Herrin.
- URL: http://www.cs.unh.edu/cnrg/gherrin
- Keywords: network, networking, protocol, IP, UDP, TCP, connection,
- socket, receiving, transmitting, forwarding, routing, packets,
- modules, /proc, sk_buff, FIB, tags.
- Description: Excellent paper devoted to the Linux IP Networking,
- explaining anything from the kernel's to the user space
- configuration tools' code. Very good to get a general overview of
- the kernel networking implementation and understand all steps
- packets follow from the time they are received at the network
- device till they are delivered to applications. The studied kernel
- code is from 2.2.14 version. Provides code for a working packet
- dropper example.
-
- * Title: "Get those boards talking under Linux."
- Author: Alex Ivchenko.
- URL: http://www.edn.com/article/CA46968.html
- Keywords: data-acquisition boards, drivers, modules, interrupts,
- memory allocation.
- Description: Article written for people wishing to make their data
- acquisition boards work on their GNU/Linux machines. Gives a basic
- overview on writing drivers, from the naming of functions to
- interrupt handling.
- Notes: Two-parts article. Part II is at
- URL: http://www.edn.com/article/CA46998.html
-
- * Title: "Linux PCMCIA Programmer's Guide"
- Author: David Hinds.
- URL: http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-PROG.html
- Keywords: PCMCIA.
- Description: "This document describes how to write kernel device
- drivers for the Linux PCMCIA Card Services interface. It also
- describes how to write user-mode utilities for communicating with
- Card Services.
-
- * Title: "The Linux Kernel NFSD Implementation"
- Author: Neil Brown.
- URL:
- http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~neilb/oss/linux-commentary/nfsd.html
- Keywords: knfsd, nfsd, NFS, RPC, lockd, mountd, statd.
- Description: The title says it all.
- Notes: Covers knfsd's version 1.4.7 (patch against 2.2.7 kernel).
-
- * Title: "A Linux vm README"
- Author: Kanoj Sarcar.
- URL: http://kos.enix.org/pub/linux-vmm.html
- Keywords: virtual memory, mm, pgd, vma, page, page flags, page
- cache, swap cache, kswapd.
- Description: Telegraphic, short descriptions and definitions
- relating the Linux virtual memory implementation.
-
- * Title: "(nearly) Complete Linux Loadable Kernel Modules. The
- definitive guide for hackers, virus coders and system
- administrators."
- Author: pragmatic/THC.
- URL: http://packetstormsecurity.org/docs/hack/LKM_HACKING.html
- Keywords: syscalls, intercept, hide, abuse, symbol table.
- Description: Interesting paper on how to abuse the Linux kernel in
- order to intercept and modify syscalls, make
- files/directories/processes invisible, become root, hijack ttys,
- write kernel modules based virus... and solutions for admins to
- avoid all those abuses.
- Notes: For 2.0.x kernels. Gives guidances to port it to 2.2.x
- kernels.
-
- BOOKS: (Not on-line)
-
- * Title: "Linux Device Drivers"
- Author: Alessandro Rubini.
- Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates.
- Date: 1998.
- Pages: 439.
- ISBN: 1-56592-292-1
-
- * Title: "Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition"
- Author: Alessandro Rubini and Jonathan Corbet.
- Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates.
- Date: 2001.
- Pages: 586.
- ISBN: 0-59600-008-1
- Notes: Further information in
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive2/
-
- * Title: "Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition"
- Authors: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman
- Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates.
- Date: 2005.
- Pages: 636.
- ISBN: 0-596-00590-3
- Notes: Further information in
- http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive3/
- PDF format, URL: http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
-
- * Title: "Linux Kernel Internals"
- Author: Michael Beck.
- Publisher: Addison-Wesley.
- Date: 1997.
- ISBN: 0-201-33143-8 (second edition)
-
- * Title: "The Design of the UNIX Operating System"
- Author: Maurice J. Bach.
- Publisher: Prentice Hall.
- Date: 1986.
- Pages: 471.
- ISBN: 0-13-201757-1
-
- * Title: "The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD UNIX
- Operating System"
- Author: Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J.
- Karels, John S. Quarterman.
- Publisher: Addison-Wesley.
- Date: 1989 (reprinted with corrections on October, 1990).
- ISBN: 0-201-06196-1
-
- * Title: "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD UNIX
- Operating System"
- Author: Marshall Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels,
- John S. Quarterman.
- Publisher: Addison-Wesley.
- Date: 1996.
- ISBN: 0-201-54979-4
-
- * Title: "Programmation Linux 2.0 API systeme et fonctionnement du
- noyau"
- Author: Remy Card, Eric Dumas, Franck Mevel.
- Publisher: Eyrolles.
- Date: 1997.
- Pages: 520.
- ISBN: 2-212-08932-5
- Notes: French.
-
- * Title: "Unix internals -- the new frontiers"
- Author: Uresh Vahalia.
- Publisher: Prentice Hall.
- Date: 1996.
- Pages: 600.
- ISBN: 0-13-101908-2
-
- * Title: "Programming for the real world - POSIX.4"
- Author: Bill O. Gallmeister.
- Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc..
- Date: 1995.
- Pages: ???.
- ISBN: I-56592-074-0
- Notes: Though not being directly about Linux, Linux aims to be
- POSIX. Good reference.
-
- * Title: "UNIX Systems for Modern Architectures: Symmetric
- Multiprocessing and Caching for Kernel Programmers"
- Author: Curt Schimmel.
- Publisher: Addison Wesley.
- Date: June, 1994.
- Pages: 432.
- ISBN: 0-201-63338-8
-
- * Title: "Linux Kernel Development, 3rd Edition"
- Author: Robert Love
- Publisher: Addison-Wesley.
- Date: July, 2010
- Pages: 440
- ISBN: 978-0672329463
-
- MISCELLANEOUS:
-
- * Name: linux/Documentation
- Author: Many.
- URL: Just look inside your kernel sources.
- Keywords: anything, DocBook.
- Description: Documentation that comes with the kernel sources,
- inside the Documentation directory. Some pages from this document
- (including this document itself) have been moved there, and might
- be more up to date than the web version.
-
- * Name: "Linux Kernel Source Reference"
- Author: Thomas Graichen.
- URL: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=96446640102205&w=4
- Keywords: CVS, web, cvsweb, browsing source code.
- Description: Web interface to a CVS server with the kernel
- sources. "Here you can have a look at any file of the Linux kernel
- sources of any version starting from 1.0 up to the (daily updated)
- current version available. Also you can check the differences
- between two versions of a file".
-
- * Name: "Cross-Referencing Linux"
- URL: http://lxr.free-electrons.com/
- Keywords: Browsing source code.
- Description: Another web-based Linux kernel source code browser.
- Lots of cross references to variables and functions. You can see
- where they are defined and where they are used.
-
- * Name: "Linux Weekly News"
- URL: http://lwn.net
- Keywords: latest kernel news.
- Description: The title says it all. There's a fixed kernel section
- summarizing developers' work, bug fixes, new features and versions
- produced during the week. Published every Thursday.
-
- * Name: "Kernel Traffic"
- URL: http://kt.earth.li/kernel-traffic/index.html
- Keywords: linux-kernel mailing list, weekly kernel news.
- Description: Weekly newsletter covering the most relevant
- discussions of the linux-kernel mailing list.
-
- * Name: "CuTTiNG.eDGe.LiNuX"
- URL: http://edge.kernelnotes.org
- Keywords: changelist.
- Description: Site which provides the changelist for every kernel
- release. What's new, what's better, what's changed. Myrdraal reads
- the patches and describes them. Pointers to the patches are there,
- too.
-
- * Name: "New linux-kernel Mailing List FAQ"
- URL: http://www.tux.org/lkml/
- Keywords: linux-kernel mailing list FAQ.
- Description: linux-kernel is a mailing list for developers to
- communicate. This FAQ builds on the previous linux-kernel mailing
- list FAQ maintained by Frohwalt Egerer, who no longer maintains
- it. Read it to see how to join the mailing list. Dozens of
- interesting questions regarding the list, Linux, developers (who
- is ...?), terms (what is...?) are answered here too. Just read it.
-
- * Name: "Linux Virtual File System"
- Author: Peter J. Braam.
- URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/talks/linuxvfs/
- Keywords: slides, VFS, inode, superblock, dentry, dcache.
- Description: Set of slides, presumably from a presentation on the
- Linux VFS layer. Covers version 2.1.x, with dentries and the
- dcache.
-
- * Name: "Gary's Encyclopedia - The Linux Kernel"
- Author: Gary (I suppose...).
- URL: http://slencyclopedia.berlios.de/index.html
- Keywords: linux, community, everything!
- Description: Gary's Encyclopedia exists to allow the rapid finding
- of documentation and other information of interest to GNU/Linux
- users. It has about 4000 links to external pages in 150 major
- categories. This link is for kernel-specific links, documents,
- sites... This list is now hosted by developer.Berlios.de,
- but seems not to have been updated since sometime in 1999.
-
- * Name: "The home page of Linux-MM"
- Author: The Linux-MM team.
- URL: http://linux-mm.org/
- Keywords: memory management, Linux-MM, mm patches, TODO, docs,
- mailing list.
- Description: Site devoted to Linux Memory Management development.
- Memory related patches, HOWTOs, links, mm developers... Don't miss
- it if you are interested in memory management development!
-
- * Name: "Kernel Newbies IRC Channel and Website"
- URL: http://www.kernelnewbies.org
- Keywords: IRC, newbies, channel, asking doubts.
- Description: #kernelnewbies on irc.oftc.net.
- #kernelnewbies is an IRC network dedicated to the 'newbie'
- kernel hacker. The audience mostly consists of people who are
- learning about the kernel, working on kernel projects or
- professional kernel hackers that want to help less seasoned kernel
- people.
- #kernelnewbies is on the OFTC IRC Network.
- Try irc.oftc.net as your server and then /join #kernelnewbies.
- The kernelnewbies website also hosts articles, documents, FAQs...
-
- * Name: "linux-kernel mailing list archives and search engines"
- URL: http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html
- URL: http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/index.html
- URL: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel
- URL: http://groups.google.com/group/mlist.linux.kernel
- URL: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/
- URL: http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/linux-kernel/
- Keywords: linux-kernel, archives, search.
- Description: Some of the linux-kernel mailing list archivers. If
- you have a better/another one, please let me know.
- _________________________________________________________________
-
- Document last updated on Sat 2005-NOV-19
+.. note::
+ The latest version of this document may be found at:
+ :http://www.dit.upm.es/~jmseyas/linux/kernel/hackers-docs.html
+
+The need for a document like this one became apparent in the
+linux-kernel mailing list as the same questions, asking for pointers
+to information, appeared again and again.
+
+Fortunately, as more and more people get to GNU/Linux, more and more
+get interested in the Kernel. But reading the sources is not always
+enough. It is easy to understand the code, but miss the concepts, the
+philosophy and design decisions behind this code.
+
+Unfortunately, not many documents are available for beginners to
+start. And, even if they exist, there was no "well-known" place which
+kept track of them. These lines try to cover this lack. All documents
+available on line known by the author are listed, while some reference
+books are also mentioned.
+
+PLEASE, if you know any paper not listed here or write a new document,
+send me an e-mail, and I'll include a reference to it here. Any
+corrections, ideas or comments are also welcomed.
+
+The papers that follow are listed in no particular order. All are
+cataloged with the following fields: the document's "Title", the
+"Author"/s, the "URL" where they can be found, some "Keywords" helpful
+when searching for specific topics, and a brief "Description" of the
+Document.
+
+Enjoy!
+
+ON-LINE DOCS
+------------
+
+ * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition**
+
+ :Author: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, Greg Kroah-Hartman
+ :URL: http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
+ :Description: A 600-page book covering the (2.6.10) driver
+ programming API and kernel hacking in general. Available under the
+ Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
+
+ * Title: **The Linux Kernel**
+
+ :Author: David A. Rusling.
+ :URL: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/tlk/tlk.html
+ :Keywords: everything!, book.
+ :Description: On line, 200 pages book describing most aspects of
+ the Linux Kernel. Probably, the first reference for beginners.
+ Lots of illustrations explaining data structures use and
+ relationships in the purest Richard W. Stevens' style. Contents:
+ "1.-Hardware Basics, 2.-Software Basics, 3.-Memory Management,
+ 4.-Processes, 5.-Interprocess Communication Mechanisms, 6.-PCI,
+ 7.-Interrupts and Interrupt Handling, 8.-Device Drivers, 9.-The
+ File system, 10.-Networks, 11.-Kernel Mechanisms, 12.-Modules,
+ 13.-The Linux Kernel Sources, A.-Linux Data Structures, B.-The
+ Alpha AXP Processor, C.-Useful Web and FTP Sites, D.-The GNU
+ General Public License, Glossary". In short: a must have.
+
+ * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition**
+
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini and Jonathan Corbet.
+ :URL: http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/index.html
+ :Keywords: device drivers, modules, debugging, memory, hardware,
+ interrupt handling, char drivers, block drivers, kmod, mmap, DMA,
+ buses.
+ :Description: O'Reilly's popular book, now also on-line under the
+ GNU Free Documentation License.
+ :Notes: You can also buy it in paper-form from O'Reilly. See below
+ under BOOKS (Not on-line).
+
+ * Title: **Conceptual Architecture of the Linux Kernel**
+
+ :Author: Ivan T. Bowman.
+ :URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
+ :Keywords: conceptual software architecture, extracted design,
+ reverse engineering, system structure.
+ :Description: Conceptual software architecture of the Linux kernel,
+ automatically extracted from the source code. Very detailed. Good
+ figures. Gives good overall kernel understanding.
+
+ * Title: **Concrete Architecture of the Linux Kernel**
+
+ :Author: Ivan T. Bowman, Saheem Siddiqi, and Meyer C. Tanuan.
+ :URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
+ :Keywords: concrete architecture, extracted design, reverse
+ engineering, system structure, dependencies.
+ :Description: Concrete architecture of the Linux kernel,
+ automatically extracted from the source code. Very detailed. Good
+ figures. Gives good overall kernel understanding. This papers
+ focus on lower details than its predecessor (files, variables...).
+
+ * Title: **Linux as a Case Study: Its Extracted Software Architecture**
+
+ :Author: Ivan T. Bowman, Richard C. Holt and Neil V. Brewster.
+ :URL: http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/
+ :Keywords: software architecture, architecture recovery,
+ redocumentation.
+ :Description: Paper appeared at ICSE'99, Los Angeles, May 16-22,
+ 1999. A mixture of the previous two documents from the same
+ author.
+
+ * Title: **Overview of the Virtual File System**
+
+ :Author: Richard Gooch.
+ :URL: http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/filesystems/vfs.txt
+ :Keywords: VFS, File System, mounting filesystems, opening files,
+ dentries, dcache.
+ :Description: Brief introduction to the Linux Virtual File System.
+ What is it, how it works, operations taken when opening a file or
+ mounting a file system and description of important data
+ structures explaining the purpose of each of their entries.
+
+ * Title: **The Linux RAID-1, 4, 5 Code**
+
+ :Author: Ingo Molnar, Gadi Oxman and Miguel de Icaza.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2391
+ :Keywords: RAID, MD driver.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *A description of the implementation of the RAID-1,
+ RAID-4 and RAID-5 personalities of the MD device driver in the
+ Linux kernel, providing users with high performance and reliable,
+ secondary-storage capability using software*.
+
+ * Title: **Dynamic Kernels: Modularized Device Drivers**
+
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1219
+ :Keywords: device driver, module, loading/unloading modules,
+ allocating resources.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *This is the first of a series of four articles
+ co-authored by Alessandro Rubini and Georg Zezchwitz which present
+ a practical approach to writing Linux device drivers as kernel
+ loadable modules. This installment presents an introduction to the
+ topic, preparing the reader to understand next month's
+ installment*.
+
+ * Title: **Dynamic Kernels: Discovery**
+
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1220
+ :Keywords: character driver, init_module, clean_up module,
+ autodetection, mayor number, minor number, file operations,
+ open(), close().
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *This article, the second of four, introduces part of
+ the actual code to create custom module implementing a character
+ device driver. It describes the code for module initialization and
+ cleanup, as well as the open() and close() system calls*.
+
+ * Title: **The Devil's in the Details**
+
+ :Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz and Alessandro Rubini.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1221
+ :Keywords: read(), write(), select(), ioctl(), blocking/non
+ blocking mode, interrupt handler.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *This article, the third of four on writing character
+ device drivers, introduces concepts of reading, writing, and using
+ ioctl-calls*.
+
+ * Title: **Dissecting Interrupts and Browsing DMA**
+
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini and Georg v. Zezschwitz.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1222
+ :Keywords: interrupts, irqs, DMA, bottom halves, task queues.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is its
+ :Abstract: *This is the fourth in a series of articles about
+ writing character device drivers as loadable kernel modules. This
+ month, we further investigate the field of interrupt handling.
+ Though it is conceptually simple, practical limitations and
+ constraints make this an ''interesting'' part of device driver
+ writing, and several different facilities have been provided for
+ different situations. We also investigate the complex topic of
+ DMA*.
+
+ * Title: **Device Drivers Concluded**
+
+ :Author: Georg v. Zezschwitz.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1287
+ :Keywords: address spaces, pages, pagination, page management,
+ demand loading, swapping, memory protection, memory mapping, mmap,
+ virtual memory areas (VMAs), vremap, PCI.
+ :Description: Finally, the above turned out into a five articles
+ series. This latest one's introduction reads: "This is the last of
+ five articles about character device drivers. In this final
+ section, Georg deals with memory mapping devices, beginning with
+ an overall description of the Linux memory management concepts".
+
+ * Title: **Network Buffers And Memory Management**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1312
+ :Keywords: sk_buffs, network devices, protocol/link layer
+ variables, network devices flags, transmit, receive,
+ configuration, multicast.
+ :Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner.
+ :Abstract: *Writing a network device driver for Linux is fundamentally
+ simple---most of the complexity (other than talking to the
+ hardware) involves managing network packets in memory*.
+
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Hackers' Guide**
+
+ :Author: Michael K. Johnson.
+ :URL: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/khg/HyperNews/get/khg.html
+ :Keywords: device drivers, files, VFS, kernel interface, character vs
+ block devices, hardware interrupts, scsi, DMA, access to user memory,
+ memory allocation, timers.
+ :Description: A guide designed to help you get up to speed on the
+ concepts that are not intuitevly obvious, and to document the internal
+ structures of Linux.
+
+ * Title: **The Venus kernel interface**
+
+ :Author: Peter J. Braam.
+ :URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/html/kernel-venus-protocol.html
+ :Keywords: coda, filesystem, venus, cache manager.
+ :Description: "This document describes the communication between
+ Venus and kernel level file system code needed for the operation
+ of the Coda filesystem. This version document is meant to describe
+ the current interface (version 1.0) as well as improvements we
+ envisage".
+
+ * Title: **Programming PCI-Devices under Linux**
+
+ :Author: Claus Schroeter.
+ :URL: ftp://ftp.llp.fu-berlin.de/pub/linux/LINUX-LAB/whitepapers/pcip.ps.gz
+ :Keywords: PCI, device, busmastering.
+ :Description: 6 pages tutorial on PCI programming under Linux.
+ Gives the basic concepts on the architecture of the PCI subsystem,
+ as long as basic functions and macros to read/write the devices
+ and perform busmastering.
+
+ * Title: **Writing Character Device Driver for Linux**
+
+ :Author: R. Baruch and C. Schroeter.
+ :URL: ftp://ftp.llp.fu-berlin.de/pub/linux/LINUX-LAB/whitepapers/drivers.ps.gz
+ :Keywords: character device drivers, I/O, signals, DMA, accessing
+ ports in user space, kernel environment.
+ :Description: 68 pages paper on writing character drivers. A little
+ bit old (1.993, 1.994) although still useful.
+
+ * Title: **Design and Implementation of the Second Extended Filesystem**
+
+ :Author: Rémy Card, Theodore Ts'o, Stephen Tweedie.
+ :URL: http://web.mit.edu/tytso/www/linux/ext2intro.html
+ :Keywords: ext2, linux fs history, inode, directory, link, devices,
+ VFS, physical structure, performance, benchmarks, ext2fs library,
+ ext2fs tools, e2fsck.
+ :Description: Paper written by three of the top ext2 hackers.
+ Covers Linux filesystems history, ext2 motivation, ext2 features,
+ design, physical structure on disk, performance, benchmarks,
+ e2fsck's passes description... A must read!
+ :Notes: This paper was first published in the Proceedings of the
+ First Dutch International Symposium on Linux, ISBN 90-367-0385-9.
+
+ * Title: **Analysis of the Ext2fs structure**
+
+ :Author: Louis-Dominique Dubeau.
+ :URL: http://teaching.csse.uwa.edu.au/units/CITS2002/fs-ext2/
+ :Keywords: ext2, filesystem, ext2fs.
+ :Description: Description of ext2's blocks, directories, inodes,
+ bitmaps, invariants...
+
+ * Title: **Journaling the Linux ext2fs Filesystem**
+
+ :Author: Stephen C. Tweedie.
+ :URL: ftp://ftp.uk.linux.org/pub/linux/sct/fs/jfs/journal-design.ps.gz
+ :Keywords: ext3, journaling.
+ :Description: Excellent 8-pages paper explaining the journaling
+ capabilities added to ext2 by the author, showing different
+ problems faced and the alternatives chosen.
+
+ * Title: **Kernel API changes from 2.0 to 2.2**
+
+ :Author: Richard Gooch.
+ :URL: http://www.safe-mbox.com/~rgooch/linux/docs/porting-to-2.2.html
+ :Keywords: 2.2, changes.
+ :Description: Kernel functions/structures/variables which changed
+ from 2.0.x to 2.2.x.
+
+ * Title: **Kernel API changes from 2.2 to 2.4**
+
+ :Author: Richard Gooch.
+ :URL: http://www.safe-mbox.com/~rgooch/linux/docs/porting-to-2.4.html
+ :Keywords: 2.4, changes.
+ :Description: Kernel functions/structures/variables which changed
+ from 2.2.x to 2.4.x.
+
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Module Programming Guide**
+
+ :Author: Ori Pomerantz.
+ :URL: http://tldp.org/LDP/lkmpg/2.6/html/index.html
+ :Keywords: modules, GPL book, /proc, ioctls, system calls,
+ interrupt handlers .
+ :Description: Very nice 92 pages GPL book on the topic of modules
+ programming. Lots of examples.
+
+ * Title: **I/O Event Handling Under Linux**
+
+ :Author: Richard Gooch.
+ :Keywords: IO, I/O, select(2), poll(2), FDs, aio_read(2), readiness
+ event queues.
+ :Description: From the Introduction: "I/O Event handling is about
+ how your Operating System allows you to manage a large number of
+ open files (file descriptors in UNIX/POSIX, or FDs) in your
+ application. You want the OS to notify you when FDs become active
+ (have data ready to be read or are ready for writing). Ideally you
+ want a mechanism that is scalable. This means a large number of
+ inactive FDs cost very little in memory and CPU time to manage".
+
+ * Title: **The Kernel Hacking HOWTO**
+
+ :Author: Various Talented People, and Rusty.
+ :Location: in kernel tree, Documentation/DocBook/kernel-hacking.tmpl
+ (must be built as "make {htmldocs | psdocs | pdfdocs})
+ :Keywords: HOWTO, kernel contexts, deadlock, locking, modules,
+ symbols, return conventions.
+ :Description: From the Introduction: "Please understand that I
+ never wanted to write this document, being grossly underqualified,
+ but I always wanted to read it, and this was the only way. I
+ simply explain some best practices, and give reading entry-points
+ into the kernel sources. I avoid implementation details: that's
+ what the code is for, and I ignore whole tracts of useful
+ routines. This document assumes familiarity with C, and an
+ understanding of what the kernel is, and how it is used. It was
+ originally written for the 2.3 kernels, but nearly all of it
+ applies to 2.2 too; 2.0 is slightly different".
+
+ * Title: **Writing an ALSA Driver**
+
+ :Author: Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
+ :URL: http://www.alsa-project.org/~iwai/writing-an-alsa-driver/index.html
+ :Keywords: ALSA, sound, soundcard, driver, lowlevel, hardware.
+ :Description: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture for developers,
+ both at kernel and user-level sides. ALSA is the Linux kernel
+ sound architecture in the 2.6 kernel version.
+
+ * Title: **Programming Guide for Linux USB Device Drivers**
+
+ :Author: Detlef Fliegl.
+ :URL: http://usb.in.tum.de/usbdoc/
+ :Keywords: USB, universal serial bus.
+ :Description: A must-read. From the Preface: "This document should
+ give detailed information about the current state of the USB
+ subsystem and its API for USB device drivers. The first section
+ will deal with the basics of USB devices. You will learn about
+ different types of devices and their properties. Going into detail
+ you will see how USB devices communicate on the bus. The second
+ section gives an overview of the Linux USB subsystem [2] and the
+ device driver framework. Then the API and its data structures will
+ be explained step by step. The last section of this document
+ contains a reference of all API calls and their return codes".
+ :Notes: Beware: the main page states: "This document may not be
+ published, printed or used in excerpts without explicit permission
+ of the author". Fortunately, it may still be read...
+
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Mailing List Glossary**
+
+ :Author: various
+ :URL: http://kernelnewbies.org/glossary/
+ :Keywords: glossary, terms, linux-kernel.
+ :Description: From the introduction: "This glossary is intended as
+ a brief description of some of the acronyms and terms you may hear
+ during discussion of the Linux kernel".
+
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Locking HOWTO**
+
+ :Author: Various Talented People, and Rusty.
+ :Location: in kernel tree, Documentation/DocBook/kernel-locking.tmpl
+ (must be built as "make {htmldocs | psdocs | pdfdocs})
+ :Keywords: locks, locking, spinlock, semaphore, atomic, race
+ condition, bottom halves, tasklets, softirqs.
+ :Description: The title says it all: document describing the
+ locking system in the Linux Kernel either in uniprocessor or SMP
+ systems.
+ :Notes: "It was originally written for the later (>2.3.47) 2.3
+ kernels, but most of it applies to 2.2 too; 2.0 is slightly
+ different". Freely redistributable under the conditions of the GNU
+ General Public License.
+
+ * Title: **Global spinlock list and usage**
+
+ :Author: Rick Lindsley.
+ :URL: http://lse.sourceforge.net/lockhier/global-spin-lock
+ :Keywords: spinlock.
+ :Description: This is an attempt to document both the existence and
+ usage of the spinlocks in the Linux 2.4.5 kernel. Comprehensive
+ list of spinlocks showing when they are used, which functions
+ access them, how each lock is acquired, under what conditions it
+ is held, whether interrupts can occur or not while it is held...
+
+ * Title: **Porting Linux 2.0 Drivers To Linux 2.2: Changes and New Features**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/1999-05/gear_01.html
+ :Keywords: ports, porting.
+ :Description: Article from Linux Magazine on porting from 2.0 to
+ 2.2 kernels.
+
+ * Title: **Porting Device Drivers To Linux 2.2: part II**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/238
+ :Keywords: ports, porting.
+ :Description: Second part on porting from 2.0 to 2.2 kernels.
+
+ * Title: **How To Make Sure Your Driver Will Work On The Power Macintosh**
+
+ :Author: Paul Mackerras.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/261
+ :Keywords: Mac, Power Macintosh, porting, drivers, compatibility.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **An Introduction to SCSI Drivers**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/284
+ :Keywords: SCSI, device, driver.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Advanced SCSI Drivers And Other Tales**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/307
+ :Keywords: SCSI, device, driver, advanced.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Writing Linux Mouse Drivers**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/330
+ :Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **More on Mouse Drivers**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/356
+ :Keywords: mouse, driver, gpm, races, asynchronous I/O.
+ :Description: The title still says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Writing Video4linux Radio Driver**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/381
+ :Keywords: video4linux, driver, radio, radio devices.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Video4linux Drivers, Part 1: Video-Capture Device**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/406
+ :Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
+ camera driver.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Video4linux Drivers, Part 2: Video-capture Devices**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/429
+ :Keywords: video4linux, driver, video capture, capture devices,
+ camera driver, control, query capabilities, capability, facility.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **PCI Management in Linux 2.2**
+
+ :Author: Alan Cox.
+ :URL: http://www.linux-mag.com/id/452
+ :Keywords: PCI, bus, bus-mastering.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+
+ * Title: **Linux 2.4 Kernel Internals**
+
+ :Author: Tigran Aivazian and Christoph Hellwig.
+ :URL: http://www.moses.uklinux.net/patches/lki.html
+ :Keywords: Linux, kernel, booting, SMB boot, VFS, page cache.
+ :Description: A little book used for a short training course.
+ Covers building the kernel image, booting (including SMP bootup),
+ process management, VFS and more.
+
+ * Title: **Linux IP Networking. A Guide to the Implementation and Modification of the Linux Protocol Stack.**
+
+ :Author: Glenn Herrin.
+ :URL: http://www.cs.unh.edu/cnrg/gherrin
+ :Keywords: network, networking, protocol, IP, UDP, TCP, connection,
+ socket, receiving, transmitting, forwarding, routing, packets,
+ modules, /proc, sk_buff, FIB, tags.
+ :Description: Excellent paper devoted to the Linux IP Networking,
+ explaining anything from the kernel's to the user space
+ configuration tools' code. Very good to get a general overview of
+ the kernel networking implementation and understand all steps
+ packets follow from the time they are received at the network
+ device till they are delivered to applications. The studied kernel
+ code is from 2.2.14 version. Provides code for a working packet
+ dropper example.
+
+ * Title: **Get those boards talking under Linux.**
+
+ :Author: Alex Ivchenko.
+ :URL: http://www.edn.com/article/CA46968.html
+ :Keywords: data-acquisition boards, drivers, modules, interrupts,
+ memory allocation.
+ :Description: Article written for people wishing to make their data
+ acquisition boards work on their GNU/Linux machines. Gives a basic
+ overview on writing drivers, from the naming of functions to
+ interrupt handling.
+ :Notes: Two-parts article. Part II is at
+ :URL: http://www.edn.com/article/CA46998.html
+
+ * Title: **Linux PCMCIA Programmer's Guide**
+
+ :Author: David Hinds.
+ :URL: http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-PROG.html
+ :Keywords: PCMCIA.
+ :Description: "This document describes how to write kernel device
+ drivers for the Linux PCMCIA Card Services interface. It also
+ describes how to write user-mode utilities for communicating with
+ Card Services.
+
+ * Title: **The Linux Kernel NFSD Implementation**
+
+ :Author: Neil Brown.
+ :URL: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~neilb/oss/linux-commentary/nfsd.html
+ :Keywords: knfsd, nfsd, NFS, RPC, lockd, mountd, statd.
+ :Description: The title says it all.
+ :Notes: Covers knfsd's version 1.4.7 (patch against 2.2.7 kernel).
+
+ * Title: **A Linux vm README**
+
+ :Author: Kanoj Sarcar.
+ :URL: http://kos.enix.org/pub/linux-vmm.html
+ :Keywords: virtual memory, mm, pgd, vma, page, page flags, page
+ cache, swap cache, kswapd.
+ :Description: Telegraphic, short descriptions and definitions
+ relating the Linux virtual memory implementation.
+
+ * Title: **(nearly) Complete Linux Loadable Kernel Modules. The definitive guide for hackers, virus coders and system administrators.**
+
+ :Author: pragmatic/THC.
+ :URL: http://packetstormsecurity.org/docs/hack/LKM_HACKING.html
+ :Keywords: syscalls, intercept, hide, abuse, symbol table.
+ :Description: Interesting paper on how to abuse the Linux kernel in
+ order to intercept and modify syscalls, make
+ files/directories/processes invisible, become root, hijack ttys,
+ write kernel modules based virus... and solutions for admins to
+ avoid all those abuses.
+ :Notes: For 2.0.x kernels. Gives guidances to port it to 2.2.x
+ kernels.
+
+BOOKS: (Not on-line)
+--------------------
+
+ * Title: **Linux Device Drivers**
+
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini.
+ :Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates.
+ :Date: 1998.
+ :Pages: 439.
+ :ISBN: 1-56592-292-1
+
+ * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition**
+
+ :Author: Alessandro Rubini and Jonathan Corbet.
+ :Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates.
+ :Date: 2001.
+ :Pages: 586.
+ :ISBN: 0-59600-008-1
+ :Notes: Further information in
+ http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive2/
+
+ * Title: **Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition**
+
+ :Authors: Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman
+ :Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates.
+ :Date: 2005.
+ :Pages: 636.
+ :ISBN: 0-596-00590-3
+ :Notes: Further information in
+ http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive3/
+ PDF format, URL: http://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/
+
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Internals**
+
+ :Author: Michael Beck.
+ :Publisher: Addison-Wesley.
+ :Date: 1997.
+ :ISBN: 0-201-33143-8 (second edition)
+
+ * Title: **The Design of the UNIX Operating System**
+
+ :Author: Maurice J. Bach.
+ :Publisher: Prentice Hall.
+ :Date: 1986.
+ :Pages: 471.
+ :ISBN: 0-13-201757-1
+
+ * Title: **The Design and Implementation of the 4.3 BSD UNIX Operating System**
+
+ :Author: Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Michael J.
+ Karels, John S. Quarterman.
+ :Publisher: Addison-Wesley.
+ :Date: 1989 (reprinted with corrections on October, 1990).
+ :ISBN: 0-201-06196-1
+
+ * Title: **The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD UNIX Operating System**
+
+ :Author: Marshall Kirk McKusick, Keith Bostic, Michael J. Karels,
+ John S. Quarterman.
+ :Publisher: Addison-Wesley.
+ :Date: 1996.
+ :ISBN: 0-201-54979-4
+
+ * Title: **Programmation Linux 2.0 API systeme et fonctionnement du noyau**
+
+ :Author: Remy Card, Eric Dumas, Franck Mevel.
+ :Publisher: Eyrolles.
+ :Date: 1997.
+ :Pages: 520.
+ :ISBN: 2-212-08932-5
+ :Notes: French.
+
+ * Title: **Unix internals -- the new frontiers**
+
+ :Author: Uresh Vahalia.
+ :Publisher: Prentice Hall.
+ :Date: 1996.
+ :Pages: 600.
+ :ISBN: 0-13-101908-2
+
+ * Title: **Programming for the real world - POSIX.4**
+
+ :Author: Bill O. Gallmeister.
+ :Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc..
+ :Date: 1995.
+ :Pages: ???.
+ :ISBN: I-56592-074-0
+ :Notes: Though not being directly about Linux, Linux aims to be
+ POSIX. Good reference.
+
+ * Title: **UNIX Systems for Modern Architectures: Symmetric Multiprocessing and Caching for Kernel Programmers**
+
+ :Author: Curt Schimmel.
+ :Publisher: Addison Wesley.
+ :Date: June, 1994.
+ :Pages: 432.
+ :ISBN: 0-201-63338-8
+
+ * Title: **Linux Kernel Development, 3rd Edition**
+
+ :Author: Robert Love
+ :Publisher: Addison-Wesley.
+ :Date: July, 2010
+ :Pages: 440
+ :ISBN: 978-0672329463
+
+MISCELLANEOUS
+-------------
+
+ * Name: **linux/Documentation**
+
+ :Author: Many.
+ :URL: Just look inside your kernel sources.
+ :Keywords: anything, DocBook.
+ :Description: Documentation that comes with the kernel sources,
+ inside the Documentation directory. Some pages from this document
+ (including this document itself) have been moved there, and might
+ be more up to date than the web version.
+
+ * Name: **Linux Kernel Source Reference**
+
+ :Author: Thomas Graichen.
+ :URL: http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=96446640102205&w=4
+ :Keywords: CVS, web, cvsweb, browsing source code.
+ :Description: Web interface to a CVS server with the kernel
+ sources. "Here you can have a look at any file of the Linux kernel
+ sources of any version starting from 1.0 up to the (daily updated)
+ current version available. Also you can check the differences
+ between two versions of a file".
+
+ * Name: **Cross-Referencing Linux**
+
+ :URL: http://lxr.free-electrons.com/
+ :Keywords: Browsing source code.
+ :Description: Another web-based Linux kernel source code browser.
+ Lots of cross references to variables and functions. You can see
+ where they are defined and where they are used.
+
+ * Name: **Linux Weekly News**
+
+ :URL: http://lwn.net
+ :Keywords: latest kernel news.
+ :Description: The title says it all. There's a fixed kernel section
+ summarizing developers' work, bug fixes, new features and versions
+ produced during the week. Published every Thursday.
+
+ * Name: **Kernel Traffic**
+
+ :URL: http://kt.earth.li/kernel-traffic/index.html
+ :Keywords: linux-kernel mailing list, weekly kernel news.
+ :Description: Weekly newsletter covering the most relevant
+ discussions of the linux-kernel mailing list.
+
+ * Name: **CuTTiNG.eDGe.LiNuX**
+
+ :URL: http://edge.kernelnotes.org
+ :Keywords: changelist.
+ :Description: Site which provides the changelist for every kernel
+ release. What's new, what's better, what's changed. Myrdraal reads
+ the patches and describes them. Pointers to the patches are there,
+ too.
+
+ * Name: **New linux-kernel Mailing List FAQ**
+
+ :URL: http://www.tux.org/lkml/
+ :Keywords: linux-kernel mailing list FAQ.
+ :Description: linux-kernel is a mailing list for developers to
+ communicate. This FAQ builds on the previous linux-kernel mailing
+ list FAQ maintained by Frohwalt Egerer, who no longer maintains
+ it. Read it to see how to join the mailing list. Dozens of
+ interesting questions regarding the list, Linux, developers (who
+ is ...?), terms (what is...?) are answered here too. Just read it.
+
+ * Name: **Linux Virtual File System**
+
+ :Author: Peter J. Braam.
+ :URL: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/doc/talks/linuxvfs/
+ :Keywords: slides, VFS, inode, superblock, dentry, dcache.
+ :Description: Set of slides, presumably from a presentation on the
+ Linux VFS layer. Covers version 2.1.x, with dentries and the
+ dcache.
+
+ * Name: **Gary's Encyclopedia - The Linux Kernel**
+
+ :Author: Gary (I suppose...).
+ :URL: http://slencyclopedia.berlios.de/index.html
+ :Keywords: linux, community, everything!
+ :Description: Gary's Encyclopedia exists to allow the rapid finding
+ of documentation and other information of interest to GNU/Linux
+ users. It has about 4000 links to external pages in 150 major
+ categories. This link is for kernel-specific links, documents,
+ sites... This list is now hosted by developer.Berlios.de,
+ but seems not to have been updated since sometime in 1999.
+
+ * Name: **The home page of Linux-MM**
+
+ :Author: The Linux-MM team.
+ :URL: http://linux-mm.org/
+ :Keywords: memory management, Linux-MM, mm patches, TODO, docs,
+ mailing list.
+ :Description: Site devoted to Linux Memory Management development.
+ Memory related patches, HOWTOs, links, mm developers... Don't miss
+ it if you are interested in memory management development!
+
+ * Name: **Kernel Newbies IRC Channel and Website**
+
+ :URL: http://www.kernelnewbies.org
+ :Keywords: IRC, newbies, channel, asking doubts.
+ :Description: #kernelnewbies on irc.oftc.net.
+ #kernelnewbies is an IRC network dedicated to the 'newbie'
+ kernel hacker. The audience mostly consists of people who are
+ learning about the kernel, working on kernel projects or
+ professional kernel hackers that want to help less seasoned kernel
+ people.
+ #kernelnewbies is on the OFTC IRC Network.
+ Try irc.oftc.net as your server and then /join #kernelnewbies.
+ The kernelnewbies website also hosts articles, documents, FAQs...
+
+ * Name: **linux-kernel mailing list archives and search engines**
+
+ :URL: http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html
+ :URL: http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/index.html
+ :URL: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel
+ :URL: http://groups.google.com/group/mlist.linux.kernel
+ :URL: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/
+ :URL: http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/linux-kernel/
+ :Keywords: linux-kernel, archives, search.
+ :Description: Some of the linux-kernel mailing list archivers. If
+ you have a better/another one, please let me know.
+
+-------
+
+Document last updated on Sat 2005-NOV-19
projects / openwrt / staging / blogic.git / commitdiff