Foreword
If you're holding this book, you may be asking yourself: Why "yet another" Linux device driver book? Aren't there already a bunch of them? The answer is: This book is a quantum leap ahead of the others.
First, it is up-to-date, covering recent 2.6 kernels. Second, and more important, this book is thorough. Most device driver books just cover the topics described in standard Unix internals books or operating system books, such as serial lines, disk drives, and filesystems, and, if you're lucky, the networking stack.
This book goes much further; it doesn't shy away from the hard stuff that you have to deal with on modern PC and embedded hardware, such as PCMCIA, USB, I2C, video, audio, flash memory, wireless communications, and so on. You name it, if the Linux kernel talks to it, then this book tells you about it.
No stone is left unturned; no dark corner is left unilluminated.
Furthermore, the author has earned his stripes: It's a thrill ride just to read his description of putting Linux on a wristwatch in the late 1990s!
I'm pleased and excited to have this book as part of the Prentice Hall Open Source Software Development Series. It is a shining example of the exciting things happening in the Open Source world. I hope that you will find here what you need for your work on the kernel, and that you will enjoy the process, too!
Arnold Robbins
Series Editor
序
如果你手上正拿着这本书，你也许会问自己：为什么还要有另一本Linux设备驱动的书?这样的书不是已经有一捆了吗？
答案是：这本书相对于其他书籍来讲是一个巨大的飞跃。
首先，这本书与时俱进，它基于最新的2.6内核进行讲解。再者，更值得称道的是，这本书对驱动的讲解非常彻底。大不多设备驱动的书籍仅仅讲解了标准的Unix内核书籍或操作系统书籍中论述的主题，譬如串口、磁盘驱动和文件系统等，如果你运气好的话，它可能也会讲解网络协议栈。但是这本书却走地更远，它直面了你在现代PC和嵌入式系统中会遇到的PCMCIA、USB、I2C、视频、音频、Flash存储器、无线通信等硬件设备，而不是“犹抱琵琶半掩面”。你可以这样定位这本书：如果Linux内核包含了什么，这本书就会告诉你什么。
它毫无遗漏，应有尽有，不留死角。
进而，本书的作者赢得了他的荣耀：读到他在20世纪90年代末期就将Linux移植到某种手表上的故事就像在进行一次惊险的奇幻之旅。本书能成为Prentice Hall 出版社开源开发系列图书的一部分，我感到非常高兴。在开放源代码领域发生这样的事情，令人振奋，它将成为开源领域的光辉典范。
我希望你能从本书中找到你在进行内核开发时需要的东西，并且，你将享受此过程。
Arnold Robbins
系列图书编辑
（宋宝华译）
