Core Driver Skills: Interrupts, DMA & Bus Transfers

Linux Kernel & Device Drivers · 30 illustrated lessons (text/HTML)

Outcomes

• Write interrupt handlers with threaded IRQs and bottom halves
• Program DMA engines and scatter-gather transfers safely
• Build SPI data-acquisition drivers with DMA and interrupts

Where we teach this

• DRV-201 · Low-Speed Bus Drivers & Interrupt Handling live cohort

The lessons

Every lesson in this curriculum, in the order we teach it.

• 2The Linux kernel interrupt subsystem architecture
• 3Interrupt requests and registration
• 4Interrupt handling overview
• 5Chapter introduction
• 6Workqueue overview
• 7Threaded interrupts: principles, configuration and driver use
• 8Introduction
• 9DMA fundamentals
• 10The Linux DMA API explained
• 11DMA engine framework overview
• 12Chapter goals
• 13Cache-coherency problems
• 14Scatter-gather DMA: efficient transfers to non-contiguous memory
• 15Bus fundamentals
• 16Overview of the platform bus driver model
• 17I2C bus protocol overview
• 18SPI bus driver: protocol, master/slave and driver implementation
• 19The PCI and PCIe bus drivers explained
• 20USB system architecture overview
• 21Introduction: why the device model and sysfs matter
• 22Character-device framework: cdev, file_operations, device numbers and device files
• 23Blocking and non-blocking I/O: wait queues, poll and select in drivers
• 24Introduction: why kernel memory management matters
• 25Kernel synchronisation
• 26Introduction: an overview of kernel time management
• 27Power management overview
• 28Core Linux driver debugging techniques
• 29Case study 1: interrupt-driven button driver development and testing
• 30Case study 2: DMA-based high-speed SPI data-acquisition driver development and testing