《how-to-not-write-a-device-driver-paper》.pdf

How to NOT write kernel driver Arjan van de Ven Red Hat, Inc. arjanv@, /arjanv Abstract All of the code examples in this paper are from real code, however they have been edited slightly to fit the layout and non-essiential bits are removed for Quit a few tutorials, articles and books give an in- clarity. troduction on how to write Linux kernel drivers. Unfortionatly the things one should NOT do in Linux kernel code is is either only a minor appendix or, more commonly, completely absent. This paper 2 Allocating memory tries to briefly touch the areas in which the most common and serious bugs and do-nots are encoun- tered. The Linux kernel has a diverse API for allocating memory, unlike operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and SCO Unixware. Linux uses this set of functions and flags one the one hand to be able to more aggressively optimize the VM algorithms, and 1 Introduction on the other hand to provide safeguards against out- of-memory deadlocks. Quit a few tutorials, articles and books give an in- Quite often drivers that are ported from other op- troduction on how