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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
catalogued 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: "The Linux Kernel"
Author: David A. Rusling.
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/linux/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: "The Linux Kernel Hackers' Guide"
Author: Michael K.Johnson and others.
URL: http://www.redhat.com:8080/HyperNews/get/khg.html
Keywords: everything!
Description: No more Postscript book-like version. Only
HTML now. Many people have contributed. The interface is
similar to web available mailing lists archives. You can find
some articles and then some mails asking questions about them
and/or complementing previous contributions. A little bit
anarchic in this aspect, but with some valuable information
in some cases.
+ Title: "Tour Of the Linux Kernel Source"
Author: Vijo Cherian.
URL: http://www.svrec.ernet.in/~vijo/tolks/tolks.html
Keywords:
Description: The name says it all. A tour of the sources,
describing directories, files, variables, data structures...
It covers general stuff, device drivers, filesystems, IPC and
Network Code.
+ Title: "Overview of the Virtual File System"
Author: Richard Gooch.
URL: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/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.ssc.com/lj/issue44/2391.html
Keywords: RAID, MD driver.
Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is
it's 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.ssc.com/lj/issue23/1219.html
Keywords: device driver, module, loading/unloading modules,
allocating
resources. Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner
article. Here is it's 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.ssc.com/lj/issue24/kk24.html
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
it's 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.ssc.com/lj/issue25/kk25.html
Keywords: read(), write(), select(), ioctl(), blocking/non
blocking mode,
interrupt handler. Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner
article. Here is it's 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.ssc.com/lj/issue26/interrupt.html
Keywords: interrupts, irqs, DMA, bottom halves, task
queues.
Description: Linux Journal Kernel Korner article. Here is
it's 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: "Network Buffers And Memory Management"
Author: Alan Cox.
URL: http://www.ssc.com/lj/issue30/kk30.html
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: "An Introduction to the Linux 1.3.x Networking Code"
Author: Vipul Gupta.
URL:
http://anchor.cs.binghamton.edu/courses/cs628/linux-net.html
Keywords: files, sk_buffs.
Description: A short description of files under the net/
directory. Each file has a one- or two-line paragraph to
describe it. Also, sk_buffs is explained with some
beautiful pictures. A little bit outdated.
+ Title: "Linux ioctl() Primer"
Author: Vipul Gupta.
URL:
http://anchor.cs.binghamton.edu/courses/cs628/ioctl.html
Keywords: ioctl, socket.
Description: Little description and examples on the use and
implementation of the ioctl() system call. A little bit
biased towards sockets.
+ Title: "Writing Linux Device Drivers"
Author: Michael K. Johnson.
URL: http://www.redhat.com/~johnsonm/devices.html
Keywords: files, VFS, file operations, kernel interface,
character vs
block devices, I/O access, hardware interrupts, DMA, access
to user memory, memory allocation, timers. Description:
Introductory 50-minutes (sic) tutorial on writing device
drivers. 12 pages written by the same author of the "Kernel
Hackers' Guide" which give a very good overview of the topic.
+ 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/pc
ip.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/dr
ivers.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.
* BOOKS: (Not on-line)
+ Title: "Linux Device Drivers"
Author: Alessandro Rubini.
Publisher: O'Reilly &Associates.
Date: 1998.
ISBN: 1-56592-292-1
+ 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.
ISBN: ???
+ 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
+ Title: "Unix internals -- the new frontiers"
Author: Uresh Vahalia.
Publisher: Prentice Hall.
Date: 1996.
Pages: 600. ISBN: 0-13-101908-2
* MISCELLANEOUS:
+ Name: Linux Source Driver.
URL: http://lsd.linux.cz
Keywords: Browsing.
Description: "Linux Source Driver (LSD) is an application,
which can make browsing source codes of Linux kernel easier
than you can imagine. You can select between multiple
versions of kernel (e.g. 0.01, 1.0.0, 2.0.33, 2.0.34pre13,
2.0.0, 2.1.101 etc.). With LSD you can search Linux kernel
(fulltext, macros, types, functions and variables) and LSD
can generate patches for you on the fly (files, directories
or kernel)".
+ Name: Linux Weekly News.
URL: http://lwn.net
Keywords: last 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: CuTTiNG.eDGe.LiNuX.
URL: http://edge.linuxhq.com
Keywords: changelist.
Description: Site which provides the changelist for every
kernel release. What's new, what's better, what's changed.
Myrdraal reads the patchs and describes them. Pointers to the
patches are there, too.
+ Name: New linux-kernel Mailing List FAQ.
URL: Original site:
http://www.altern.org/andrebalsa/doc/lkml-faq.html
URL: U.S. mirror site:
http://www.ececs.uc.edu/~rreilova/linux/lkml-faq.html
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.
|
