Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

[Posted March 2, 2005 by corbet]

From:		"Kathryn Barrett" <kathrynb-AT-oreilly.com>
To:		lwn-AT-lwn.net
Subject:		"Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition" Released by O'Reilly
Date:		Wed, 02 Mar 2005 14:19:42 -0800

For Immediate Release
For more information, a review copy, cover art, or an interview with
the authors, contact:
Kathryn Barrett (707) 827-7094 or kathrynb@oreilly.com
	
Where the Kernel Meets the Hardware
O'Reilly Releases "Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition"

Sebastopol, CA--Writing device drivers is one of the few areas of
programming for the Linux operating system that calls for kernel-specific
knowledge. And device drivers literally drive everything you're interested
in--disks, monitors, keyboards, modems--everything outside the computer
chip and memory. For years now, programmers have relied on the classic
"Linux Device Drivers" (Third edition, Corbet, Rubini, and Kroah-Hartman,
O'Reilly, US $39.95) to master this critical subject.

Clearly, a new edition of this practical and highly regarded volume was
called for. The new version of the Linux kernel--version 2.6.10--has
rationalized and simplified several common tasks like plug and play,
interacting with user space through the sysfs file system, and management
of multiple devises on standard buses. "The 2.6 kernel is vastly
different, internally, from its predecessors.  This update to 'Linux
Device Drivers' is a necessary tool for programmers trying to work with
current kernels and follow the kernel's evolution," says coauthor Jonathan
Corbet.

The authors of "Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition" are leaders in the
robust Linux community and contributors to the Linux kernel.  Jonathon
Corbet is a kernel contributor and the executive editor of the highly
regarded LWN.net news and information site. Allessandro Rubini is a
contributor to the Linux code and a central figure in the vibrant Italian
Linux community. Greg Kroah-Hartman is the current kernel maintainer for
the USB, PCI, and driver core subsystems. In other words, these guys know
their stuff, and it shows.

The book has been thoroughly revised to cover the new kernel, but it also
includes new chapters on important types of drivers not covered
previously, such as consoles, USB drivers, and more. "I'm excited by what
I witness in the embedded arena. Ideas are moving fast these days," says
coauthor Rubini. For those who want to keep up with the changes to the
Linux kernel--and the future of device drivers--this new edition is
indispensable.

In keeping with the spirit of Linux kernel development, "Linux Device
Drivers, Third Edition" will be released under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike license.

Praise for the previous edition:

"If you are a developer immersed in the bowels of the Linux kernel version
2.4, this is one book you'll likely read until it's ragged...To say this
is the best book on writing Linux device drivers is to overstate the
obvious; this is the only book on writing Linux device drivers. Aside from
that, even if there were a dozen books on the topic, 'Linux Device
Drivers, 2nd Edition' would still be the best by far, given its attention
to detail throughout and the qualifications of its authors. If you are
interested in supporting computer peripherals with Linux, or developing
new hardware for the operating system, buy a copy of this book on your
next trip to the bookstore."
--Emmett Dulaney, UnixReview.com

"The second edition of 'Linux Device Drivers' remains the best
general-purpose, paper-bound guide for programmers wishing to make
hardware devices work under the world's most popular open-source operating
system portable--that is, that compile and run under all popular Linux
platforms. That, along with the fact that they're careful to explain and
illustrate concepts, makes this book very well-suited to any programmer
familiar with C but not with the hardware-software interface."
--David Wall, amazon.co.uk

More reviews of the previous editions of "Linux Device Drivers" can be
found at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive2/reviews.html

Additional Resources:

Chapter 13, "USB Drivers," is available online at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive3/chapter/index....

For more information about the book, including table of contents, index,
author bios, and samples, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdrive3/index.html

For a cover graphic in JPEG format, go to:
ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/0596005...

Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition
Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini, and Greg Kroah-Hartman
ISBN: 0-596-00590-3, 615 pages, $39.95 US, $55.95 CA
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000
http://www.oreilly.com

About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media, Inc. is the premier information source for leading-edge
computer technologies. The company's books, conferences, and web sites
bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators. O'Reilly books,
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# # #

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to post comments

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Mar 3, 2005 4:41 UTC (Thu) by modernjazz (guest, #4185) [Link] (1 responses)

Congratulations! I'll order my copy tomorrow.

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Mar 3, 2005 9:53 UTC (Thu) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link]

Ah. Now if you were truly as nuts as I, you'd have picked up both this and Linux Kernel Development (Second Edition) at the LinuxWorld last week.

I'm enjoying reading both, found a couple of typos so far, but, as usual, it is a pleasure to read the new edition of LDD.

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Mar 3, 2005 5:35 UTC (Thu) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]

Great news! Personally, I'm hoping that the 2.6 series will start to stabilize and that the authors & publishers see fit to release a "3.5 edition" patched to cover the more significant changes in the kernel since the 3rd Edition was first written.

Generally, publishers have horrible latency. In the case of a murder mystery novel, or even for a book on subatomic physics, that's fine. The latency in the subject more than covers the latency in the publication, so the book is still of considerable value. With the Linux kernel, it's another matter. The updates are coming in thick and fast, with little sign of slowing. IPMI work seems to actually be accelerating.

Personally, I like the bleeding edge. That's where you get to see people's thought processes in real-time. It's also where you get to see experimental projects as they germinate, rather than after they've already become The Next Big Thing.

However, it is a nasty environment for a printed book. It is almost impossible for a book to go through all the writing, editing, reviewing, promoting and publishing within the sorts of timeframes that the Linux kernel lives on, when it's in this kind of developmental frenzy.

That's not to say the book isn't valuable. It probably documents the kernel it was aimed at brilliantly and is likely still very very close to how things actually are in the current release. If you need a book on Linux device drivers right now, then this is likely what you want. If, however, it's more a case of learning how they work for a future project that you might not get around to for a while, it might be wiser to see what the kernel does next and how the LDD book is updated to cope.

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Mar 3, 2005 5:44 UTC (Thu) by JoeF (guest, #4486) [Link]

Thanks for the new edition. I have the 2nd edition and was waiting for a new edition covering the 2.6 kernel.

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Mar 3, 2005 6:07 UTC (Thu) by sureshb (guest, #25018) [Link]

Just got my book this after noon. I'm not sure if there is we wiki
for Linux kernel and device drivers. Will lwn be interested in hosting
this kind of project ? That is the only way to cover vast amount of
topics and changes.

Updating incrementally

Posted Mar 3, 2005 22:21 UTC (Thu) by andyo (guest, #30) [Link]

Jonathan Corbet and I have discussed the difficulty of getting updates to LDD as the kernel evolves (in fits and starts). I'd like to point out that the second edition was under an open license, and the text was available in DocBook XML, but nobody submitted any changes. Probably the difficulty lay in the logistics, although it's harder to put in small updates without ripple effects than one would think. The idea of a Wiki (a phenomenon that I think post-dated the second edition of the book) may be the way to go. Jonathan's articles on the kernel page of LWN.net served as a kind of incremental update for the previous edition.

Andy Oram

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Mar 4, 2005 11:48 UTC (Fri) by arafel (subscriber, #18557) [Link]

Congratulations :) The 2nd edition book has been extremely useful (particularly in combination with the LWN porting guide); I'll see about picking this one up as soon as we can.

In passing, you really should publicise your "2.6 kernel API" page more - I didn't even know it existed!

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Mar 10, 2005 19:57 UTC (Thu) by Caleb (guest, #28379) [Link] (1 responses)

Does anyone know when (and If) this book will be available online in PDF (or other) format?

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Mar 10, 2005 21:10 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

It's in the works. Soon, I hope.

Linux Device Drivers, 3rd Edition released

Posted Jun 1, 2013 3:56 UTC (Sat) by duxing2007 (guest, #91235) [Link]

hello everybody, source code examples in ldd3 are based on 2.6.10, which won't compiled on kernel version using in most currently linux distributions.I've port them to all linux longterm stable branch after 3.0. see https://github.com/duxing2007/ldd3-examples-3.x.