Appendix A. Linux Assembly

Device drivers sometimes need to implement some code snippets in assembly, so let’s take a look at the different facets of assembly programming on Linux.

Figure A.1 shows the Linux boot sequence on a PC-compatible system and is a simpler version of Figure 2.1 in Chapter 2, “A Peek Inside the Kernel.” The firmware components in the figure are implemented using different assembly syntaxes:

  • The BIOS is typically written wholly in assembly. Some of the popular PC BIOSes are coded using assemblers such as the Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM).
  • Linux bootloaders such as LILO and GRUB are implemented using a mix of C and assembly. The SYSLINUX bootloader is entirely written in assembly using the Netwide Assembler (NASM). ...

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