<< First Page    < Previous Page    Next Page >    Last Page >>

3) Devices and Drivers

In Linux, devices are files. They are located in /dev and have "major" and "minor", which tells the OS what exactly they represent.

Drivers are called modules. Under Linux, most are already compiled in the kernel, and many times, the best way to grab a new version is to replace the kernel with a  newer version (it sounds worse then it is, actually).

Modules are located in /lib/modules/<kernel version> which allow us to work with different versions of kernels and drivers, in parallel (to replace working kernel, the system should be rebooted, although there are tricks to keep it running while doing so).

There is a mechanism for automatic module loading, called kmod, which holds its configurations in /etc/moduls.conf , although modules can be loaded manually by root.