From: Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
To: Tim Bird <tim.bird@am.sony.com>
Cc: linux kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: GPS driver for Linux - kernel or user-space driver?
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 18:06:04 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20130404010604.GC19599@kroah.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <515CCEB3.4020309@am.sony.com>
On Wed, Apr 03, 2013 at 05:52:03PM -0700, Tim Bird wrote:
> I've been approached by a developer at Sony who wants to publish an
> open source driver for a Sony GPS receiver module.
What does the device look like? USB device? UART? Something else?
> I've looked in the kernel source, and only see one standalone GPS
> driver, for Garmin. It appears that most GPS support in Linux is done
> via user-space drivers. Many GPS hardware modules appear to be
> accessed via a serial line, or USB/serial port. The Sony
> module is pretty much the same, accepting commands and delivering
> data via a uart from the chip.
>
> I planning to recommend writing a user-space driver (based on
> gpsd and/or the Android GPS HAL specification). But I'm worried
> I'm missing something. Is this the correct approach, or is there
> an established kernel API for GPS modules - such that I should
> recommend that this developer writes a kernel module instead
> of, or in addition to, the user-space support for the hardware?
If it's just a uart-like device, just write a serial driver and drive it
from gpsd. That way seems to be the simplest and then the kernel just
becomes a dumb-pipe, which is fine.
thanks,
greg k-h
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2013-04-04 1:06 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2013-04-04 0:52 GPS driver for Linux - kernel or user-space driver? Tim Bird
2013-04-04 1:06 ` Greg KH [this message]
2013-04-04 1:12 ` Marcel Holtmann
2013-04-04 1:19 ` Greg KH
2013-04-04 1:44 ` Marcel Holtmann
2013-04-04 2:08 ` Greg KH
2013-04-04 7:33 ` Mika Westerberg
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