Linux

  

 

 

 

What is Device Driver ?

 

If you need a very basic level of descriptions on device driver, you may refer to my note on Operating System : Device Driver page. If you already have general understanding on device driver, just looking into following illustration would give you enough information on device drivers in Linux's point of view.

 

 

 

 

 

Character Device Driver vs Block Device Driver

 

Character Device Driver : The  device (hardware) that handles data in character by character. The word 'character' does not mean a letter. It rather indicates 'Byte'. That is, Character Device Driver is the one communicating with hardware that are handling data in Byte by Byte unit. Typical examples of Character Device are serial port, parallel port, sound card etc.

 

Block Device : The device (hardware) that handles data in blocks. The 'block' here means a chunk of data stored in a buffer. Typical example of Block Device are Hard Disk, USB Camera etc.   

 

You can figure out whether a device (device driver) is a character type driver or block type driver by looking at the first letter of ls -al output as shown below. 'c' indicates 'character type' and 'b' indicates 'block type'.

 

    $ ls -al /dev

    ...

    crw-------   1 root root      5,   1 Jan 27 03:05 console

    crw-------   1 root root     10,  59 Jan 27 03:05 cpu_dma_latency

    ..

    crw-r-----   1 root kmem      1,   4 Jan 27 03:05 port

    crw-------   1 root root    108,   0 Jan 27 03:05 ppp

    brw-rw----   1 root disk      8,   0 Jan 27 03:05 sda

    brw-rw----   1 root disk      8,   1 Jan 27 03:05 sda1

    brw-rw----   1 root disk      8,   2 Jan 27 03:05 sda2

    brw-rw----   1 root disk      8,   5 Jan 27 03:05 sda5

    crw-rw----+  1 root cdrom    21,   0 Jan 27 03:05 sg0

    crw-rw----   1 root disk     21,   1 Jan 27 03:05 sg1

    brw-rw----+  1 root cdrom    11,   0 Jan 27 03:05 sr0

    crw-rw-rw-   1 root tty       5,   0 Jan 27 21:06 tty

    crw--w----   1 root tty       4,   0 Jan 27 03:05 tty0

    crw--w----   1 root tty       4,   1 Jan 27 03:06 tty1

    crw-rw----   1 root dialout   4,  64 Jan 27 03:05 ttyS0

    crw-rw----   1 root dialout   4,  65 Jan 27 03:05 ttyS1

 

 

 

Major Number vs Minor Number 

 

Linux assigns a specific number set < Major number, Minor Number > to each of device drivers. Major number indicates a specific device type and minor number indicates each individual devices belong to a specific device type.

 

You can figure out the Major and Minor number for each device from ls-al output as shown below. The number in Red represents the major number and the number in Green represents minor number.

    $ ls -al /dev

    ...

    crw-------   1 root root      5,   1 Jan 27 03:05 console

    crw-------   1 root root     10,  59 Jan 27 03:05 cpu_dma_latency

    ..

    crw-r-----   1 root kmem      1,   4 Jan 27 03:05 port

    crw-------   1 root root    108,   0 Jan 27 03:05 ppp

    brw-rw----   1 root disk      8,   0 Jan 27 03:05 sda

    brw-rw----   1 root disk      8,   1 Jan 27 03:05 sda1

    brw-rw----   1 root disk      8,   2 Jan 27 03:05 sda2

    brw-rw----   1 root disk      8,   5 Jan 27 03:05 sda5

    crw-rw----+  1 root cdrom    21,   0 Jan 27 03:05 sg0

    crw-rw----   1 root disk     21,   1 Jan 27 03:05 sg1

    brw-rw----+  1 root cdrom    11,   0 Jan 27 03:05 sr0

    crw-rw-rw-   1 root tty       5,   0 Jan 27 21:06 tty

    crw--w----   1 root tty       4,   0 Jan 27 03:05 tty0

    crw--w----   1 root tty       4,   1 Jan 27 03:06 tty1

    crw-rw----   1 root dialout   4,  64 Jan 27 03:05 ttyS0

    crw-rw----   1 root dialout   4,  65 Jan 27 03:05 ttyS1

 

 

You can see the relationship between Major and Minor number in the following example.  Following example is representation of disk devices (marked in Blue) in a tree format. In this example, the major number 8 is a uniquely assigned to the disk driver by linux kernal, the minor number 1,2,5 is assigned to each individual disk in my Linux PC.

 

    sda < Major 8, Minor 0 >

      |-- sda1  < Major 8, Minor 1 >

      |-- sda2  < Major 8, Minor 2 >

      |-- sda5  < Major 8, Minor 5 >

 

 

 

User Level Program vs Device Driver (Module) Program

 

 

User Level Program

Device Driver Program

int main ()  <== Entry Point. Executes from here

{

 

 

     //Run procedure sequentially  

 

     return ; <== Exit Point.

 

}

xxxx_init()

   <== specified in module_init(xxxx_init);

   <== executed by insmod command

 

// Other functions are run by a specific event.

// e.g, function call from user level program

 

xxxx_exit()

   <== specified in module_exit(xxxx_exit);

   <== executed by rmmod command

 

 

 

 

Reference :

 

[1] Using the /dev and /proc file systems