Linux Device Drivers, Second Edition

Jon’s Introduction

I first started actively playing with Linux early in 1994, when I convinced my employer to buy me a laptop from a company called, then, Fintronic Systems. Having been a Unix user since the beginning of the 1980s, and having played around in the source since about then, I was immediately hooked. Even in 1994, Linux was a highly capable system, and the first truly free system that I had ever been able to work with. I lost almost all my interest in working with proprietary systems at that point.

I didn’t ever really plan to get into writing about Linux, though. Instead, when I started talking with O’Reilly about helping with the second edition of this book, I had recently quit my job of 18 years to start a Linux consulting company. As a way of attracting attention to ourselves, we launched a Linux news site, Linux Weekly News (http://lwn.net), which, among other things, covered kernel development. As Linux exploded in popularity, the web site did too, and the consulting business was eventually forgotten.

But my first interest has always been systems programming. In the early days, that interest took the form of “fixing” the original BSD Unix paging code (which has to have been a horrible hack job) or making recalcitrant tape drives work on a VAX/VMS system (where source was available, if you didn’t mind the fact that it was in assembly and Bliss, and came on microfiche only). As time passed, I got to hack drivers on systems with names like Alliant, Ardent, and ...