Rating: 
Summary: Excellent at what it does; wish it did more.
Review: "Linux Device Drivers" is of tremendous value to anyone writing, well, Linux device drivers. It explains very well the software interface between your driver and the OS. It presuposes a working knowlege of Unix OS concepts generally, but requires no familiarity with the internals of the Linux kernel. The programming specifics are adressed heavily: This is more a programming book than a textbook. All of the concepts are supported with demonstration code, and the complete source for all the modules discussed is available by ftp. The book also explains the hardware interaction aspects less well, but still suficiently. Some of this is an unavoidable consequence of the author's interest in cross-platform aplicability. I, for one, would have preferred more information.All told, this is a wonderfull book, and I recommend it to anyone wishing to write drivers or intersted in how they are implemented.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent at what it does; wish it did more.
Review: "Linux Device Drivers" is of tremendous value to anyone writing, well, Linux device drivers. It explains very well the software interface between your driver and the OS. It presuposes a working knowlege of Unix OS concepts generally, but requires no familiarity with the internals of the Linux kernel. The programming specifics are adressed heavily: This is more a programming book than a textbook. All of the concepts are supported with demonstration code, and the complete source for all the modules discussed is available by ftp. The book also explains the hardware interaction aspects less well, but still suficiently. Some of this is an unavoidable consequence of the author's interest in cross-platform aplicability. I, for one, would have preferred more information. All told, this is a wonderfull book, and I recommend it to anyone wishing to write drivers or intersted in how they are implemented.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, don't buy it.
Review: ... This is a great book for understanding the linux kernel (and for writing device drivers for older kernels). Its now horribly out of date (2.1xx, we're soon going to be on 2.5xx). Its my understanding that the next edition is coming out very shortly (a matter of a month or two)...hence linuxhq is "featuring" this book. If you do buy this none of the examples will work out of the box on 2.2x and 2.4x kernels! If you just want an understanding how the linux kernel works and you just can't wait to find out, then its your money..go ahead.
Rating: 
Summary: OK reference. Bad tutorial ...
Review: Before starting let me assure you that I had written SCSI drivers for SVR4 and 4.2. I had also done some proprietary drivers for *BSDs earlier during undergrad/grad years. After reading all the reviews and all the ravings about this book, I made the mistake of spending my money on it! Alas! What a waste. Its like one gigantic piece of mish-mash-mess. All the information might be in there (who knows). But, finding out the correct info is almost impossible! The scull driver is a joke. Another irritating thing about the book is that it attempts to throw all sorts of info at you, all at the same time! Guys, take a break. Present information, one at a time, and only when needed. Essentially, I was trying to write a driver to read information off my Nikon F100 onto my TP600 running Mandrake 8.0. And life was miserable till I finally started digging through some other driver code that you get with the kernel sources. Gosh, that made life so simple. But, when I first read this book, I was almost ready to give up writing Linux drivers. I didn't know where to start and where I would end up! I was lost, confused, and felt utterly hopeless. Also, I wondered if the other guys who had raved about this book were:
1. the authors and their friends?
2. guys who had no clue what they were talking/writing about?
3. guys who were happy to see that there was a book on Linux drivers, but neither bought nor read it! So, don't trust these reviews. This is one heck of a horrible book that you should most definitely stay away from. Cause if you read, you would never be able to write any useful drivers. Read the source.
Rating: 
Summary: Difficult subject made clear
Review: Besides teaching you how to write device drivers it also explains a lot about how the Linux internals work. Well worth the price just for that. Read it twice now and liked it just as much the second time. Not the case for many,many of my programming/computer books. I just hope Mr. Rubini comes out with a second edition updated for the new linux kernel.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs work.
Review: Does contain lots of interesting info about Linux drivers and Linux in general. But the meat is more reference than tutorial. A really great tutorial begins chapter two, and so I thought here I'm really going to learn everything I need to know about creating Linux drivers. Didn't turn out that way. After you work the first exercise, that is, the tutorial example at the beginning of chapter two, you have seen the last of the complete examples. From here on it's code fragments and isolated functions. The author obviously could have written the book we need. But he didn't. It's a valuable book, but it's not a tutorial. What a beginner needs are whole, complete, real, listings of programs that work. Which reminds me, a real driver that drives a real device, presented in its entirety, with all details of how to compile it, and how to run it, would have been far more instructive than a "driver" that reads and writes only in memory so that it can be "portable" across many Linux platforms. A portable driver probably is a neat stunt that impresses existing gurus, but that's not the group that needs this book. To see what I'm driving at, look at Kernighan and Pike's "The UNIX Programming Environment." Their big programming project is indeed presented in fragments and isolated functions in their chapter eight, but the entire project just as it will appear on your disk is listed in the appendix. If Rubini had followed that model his book could have been really instructive. But he didn't. So there's an opportunity here. Some guru should set down and assemble these fragments into the book we need.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for a device driver author
Review: Excellent book and a bargain at this price. I read it and was able to write a Linux device driver for a proprietary encryption adapter.
Rating:
Summary: They're Rubini-mad, them kids
Review: Few who have read previous Rubini guides will be in too much doubt as to the merit of this one. I hadn't understood that the book actually dealt with software systems and hardware before I bought it, but I think it's a little bit harsh to critique the book on this basis, and am happy to give it the full five stars. I know all I need to know about Linux and devices now. Meanwhile, if anyone knows where to buy an automated Lino-cutter, I'd be grateful for your thoughts.
Rating:
Summary: They're Rubini-mad, them kids
Review: Few who have read previous Rubini guides will be in too much doubt as to the merit of this one. I hadn't understood that the book actually dealt with software systems and hardware before I bought it, but I think it's a little bit harsh to critique the book on this basis, and am happy to give it the full five stars. I know all I need to know about Linux and devices now. Meanwhile, if anyone knows where to buy an automated Lino-cutter, I'd be grateful for your thoughts.
Rating:
Summary: Very disorganized presentation
Review: I can't understand the 5-star reviews of this book. I wonder if anyone who gave the book 5 stars ever tried to sit down and actually write a device driver. I doubt it. The book suffers from two main problems: 1. Presentation is disorganized. The book reads as if the authors sat down and planned out what chapters to cover. That part is good. It does NOT seem like they planned further than that. The text within each chapter seems haphazard. Disorganized. Thrown together. The authors have no concept of when to start a new paragraph, so topics are strung together piecemeal. The whole book is confusing, making the reading of this book very frustrating. 2. The material is presented at a frenetic pace. As I was reading the book, it felt like there was a conveyor belt feeding me information, getting faster and faster without a break. The authors feel like they can throw everything but the kitchen sink at you in a very short time. Information, minute details, big ideas, analogies, and code get thrown at you fast and furious. It starts at chapter one and just gets worse from there, making the reading of this book downright difficult. Difficult and confusing. A good characterization of the book. In summary, this book is NOT a tutorial. It is NOT a guide. Don't make the mistake of buying this book expecting a gentle (or even a not-so-gentle) introduction to writing device drivers. IMHO, the market is still open for a good book on the subject of writing device drivers for Linux.
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