[ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Greg KH]

Have you ever felt teased when driver developers of other operating
systems teased you about a lack of a "proper" driver development kit for
Linux?  Have you felt left out of the crowd when looking at the 36 cdrom
package of documentation and example source code that other operating
systems provide for their developers?  Well feel ashamed no longer!

In coordination with the FreedomHEC[1] conference this week in Seattle,
WA, USA, I'm proud to announce the first release of the Linux Device
Driver Kit.

It is a cd image that contains everything that a Linux device driver
author would need in order to create Linux drivers, including a full
copy of the O'Reilly book, "Linux Device Drivers, third edition" and
pre-built copies of all of the in-kernel docbook documentation for easy
browsing.  It even has a copy of the Linux source code that you can
directly build external kernel modules against.

It can be downloaded for free at:
   kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/gregkh/ddk/

and all attendees of FreedomHEC will get a physical copy, for you to
leave around your desk for other developers to envy.


There's a few things that I would like to include in future versions of
this cdrom:
  - searchable index of all documentation.  jsFind looks like will work
    for this, but due to time constraints, did not make this release.
  - prettier web pages.  I acknolodge I'm no designer, anyone who wants
    to fix up my sparse html with proper CSS support and images would be
    greatly appreciated.
  - More documentation.  Possible inclusion is a snapshot of the
    kernelnewbies wiki.  As we have plenty of room, any pointers to
    stuff that should be included is welcome.

And of course, the image is released under the GPL v2 and can be copied
freely.  There's a cdrom label included in the root directory if you
wish to print it out.

thanks,

greg k-h

[1] Information about FreedomHEC can be found at
	http://freedomhec.pbwiki.com/

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Jesper Juhl]

On 25/05/06, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
[snip]
> In coordination with the FreedomHEC[1] conference this week in Seattle,
> WA, USA, I'm proud to announce the first release of the Linux Device
> Driver Kit.
>
Very nice initiative. Thanks a lot for doing this.

> There's a few things that I would like to include in future versions of
> this cdrom:
>   - searchable index of all documentation.  jsFind looks like will work
>     for this, but due to time constraints, did not make this release.
>   - prettier web pages.  I acknolodge I'm no designer, anyone who wants
>     to fix up my sparse html with proper CSS support and images would be
>     greatly appreciated.

I'm downloading the ISO image right now. Once I've looked through it,
I'll see what I can do to improve the web pages.


-- 
Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@gmail.com>
Don't top-post  http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/top-post.html
Plain text mails only, please      http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Tim Bird]

Greg KH wrote:
>   - More documentation.  Possible inclusion is a snapshot of the
>     kernelnewbies wiki.  As we have plenty of room, any pointers to
>     stuff that should be included is welcome.

Greg,

Great idea!  Thanks for making this.

If Jonathon thinks it's OK, I think the Kernel content from LWN would
be a great addition to the CD: http://lwn.net/Kernel/

(especially: http://lwn.net/Kernel/Index/ and children).

Regards,
 -- Tim

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Electronics
=============================

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Greg KH]

On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 12:59:05PM -0700, Tim Bird wrote:
> If Jonathon thinks it's OK, I think the Kernel content from LWN would
> be a great addition to the CD: http://lwn.net/Kernel/
> 
> (especially: http://lwn.net/Kernel/Index/ and children).

A number of people have asked for this already.  I'll talk with them
about it, as they own the copyright for that material.

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Willy Tarreau]

On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 04:29:00PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
(...)
> In coordination with the FreedomHEC[1] conference this week in Seattle,
> WA, USA, I'm proud to announce the first release of the Linux Device
> Driver Kit.
> 
> It is a cd image that contains everything that a Linux device driver
> author would need in order to create Linux drivers, including a full
> copy of the O'Reilly book, "Linux Device Drivers, third edition" and
> pre-built copies of all of the in-kernel docbook documentation for easy
> browsing.  It even has a copy of the Linux source code that you can
> directly build external kernel modules against.
> 
> It can be downloaded for free at:
>    kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/gregkh/ddk/
(...)

Got it. Thanks a lot Greg, that's an excellent initiative ! I hope it
will encourage hardware makers to provide GPL drivers.

Regards,
Willy

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Jon Masters]

On 5/25/06, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:

> It is a cd image that contains everything that a Linux device driver
> author would need in order to create Linux drivers, including a full
> copy of the O'Reilly book, "Linux Device Drivers, third edition" and
> pre-built copies of all of the in-kernel docbook documentation for easy
> browsing.  It even has a copy of the Linux source code that you can
> directly build external kernel modules against.

Thanks Greg. I'll download a copy and take a look.

Random ideas:

* Bootable Damn Small Linux (DSL) or similar.
* cached LXR (obviously with reduced function).

Jon.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Stefan Smietanowski]

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Jon Masters wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
> 
>> It is a cd image that contains everything that a Linux device driver
>> author would need in order to create Linux drivers, including a full
>> copy of the O'Reilly book, "Linux Device Drivers, third edition" and
>> pre-built copies of all of the in-kernel docbook documentation for easy
>> browsing.  It even has a copy of the Linux source code that you can
>> directly build external kernel modules against.
> 
> 
> Thanks Greg. I'll download a copy and take a look.
> 
> Random ideas:
> 
> * Bootable Damn Small Linux (DSL) or similar.
> * cached LXR (obviously with reduced function).

For what platform? MIPS ? Alpha ? x86_64 ? i386 ? ARM ?

Unless you can make it platform-agnostic (or supporting all
platforms Linux does) ..

// Stefan

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Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Jon Masters]

On 5/28/06, Stefan Smietanowski <stesmi@stesmi.com> wrote:

> Jon Masters wrote:

> > * Bootable Damn Small Linux (DSL) or similar.
> > * cached LXR (obviously with reduced function).

> For what platform? MIPS ? Alpha ? x86_64 ? i386 ? ARM ?

You missed PowerPC and a few others... :P

I get the point, but we all know that many people getting into Linux
from some other background often are using PC based platforms. It's
not worth ignoring that just because Linux supports many alternatives
and we personally use them. I personally use my Powerbooks for much of
my day-to-day Linux, but I'm weird anyway.

> Unless you can make it platform-agnostic (or supporting all
> platforms Linux does) ..

No point bothering, just do an x86 one and someone will do a variant!
:P Then they'll end up starting an entire community and figuring out
which platforms should be first class citizens for support. Before
Greg even realizes it, he'll have started a whole new Linux
distribution all by releasing a DDK. No I'm not being serious.

Jon.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Greg KH]

On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 10:29:12AM +0100, Jon Masters wrote:
> On 5/25/06, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
> Random ideas:
> 
> * Bootable Damn Small Linux (DSL) or similar.

No, I don't want to get into the distro business.  Already do enough of
that work at my day job :)

> * cached LXR (obviously with reduced function).

LXR doesn't look to run without a web server backend, which makes this
very limited.  I'm trying to get jsFind working properly, and then index
the whole kernel source tree with it.  If that happens, we will get a
basic search engine, but without cross references.

Unless someone knows how to do this another way?

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Randy.Dunlap]

On Mon, 29 May 2006 14:43:06 -0700 Greg KH wrote:

> On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 10:29:12AM +0100, Jon Masters wrote:
> > On 5/25/06, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
> > Random ideas:
> > 
> > * Bootable Damn Small Linux (DSL) or similar.
> 
> No, I don't want to get into the distro business.  Already do enough of
> that work at my day job :)
> 
> > * cached LXR (obviously with reduced function).
> 
> LXR doesn't look to run without a web server backend, which makes this
> very limited.  I'm trying to get jsFind working properly, and then index
> the whole kernel source tree with it.  If that happens, we will get a
> basic search engine, but without cross references.
> 
> Unless someone knows how to do this another way?

I've never used jsFind.  Is it much better than cscope?
or just what are you trying to provide?

---
~Randy

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Jon Masters]

On 5/29/06, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
> On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 10:29:12AM +0100, Jon Masters wrote:
> > On 5/25/06, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
> > Random ideas:

> > * Bootable Damn Small Linux (DSL) or similar.

> No, I don't want to get into the distro business.  Already do enough of
> that work at my day job :)

Fair enough. I recommended that because of it making life easier for
running LXR and the fact that DSL has a boot method for running under
Qemu *on Windows*, so you can appeal to the people who want to just
shove a disc in their Windows box and get a lot of access to dynamic
content like LXR.

Jon.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Linux Device Driver Kit available

[Greg KH]

On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 04:25:34PM -0700, Randy.Dunlap wrote:
> On Mon, 29 May 2006 14:43:06 -0700 Greg KH wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, May 28, 2006 at 10:29:12AM +0100, Jon Masters wrote:
> > > On 5/25/06, Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> wrote:
> > > Random ideas:
> > > 
> > > * Bootable Damn Small Linux (DSL) or similar.
> > 
> > No, I don't want to get into the distro business.  Already do enough of
> > that work at my day job :)
> > 
> > > * cached LXR (obviously with reduced function).
> > 
> > LXR doesn't look to run without a web server backend, which makes this
> > very limited.  I'm trying to get jsFind working properly, and then index
> > the whole kernel source tree with it.  If that happens, we will get a
> > basic search engine, but without cross references.
> > 
> > Unless someone knows how to do this another way?
> 
> I've never used jsFind.  Is it much better than cscope?
> or just what are you trying to provide?

jsFind is a search engine for web pages that works cross-platform
directly from a cdrom.  It does not require you to install any program
on your machine, which would allow you to access and search the DDK from
any operating system.

As such, it is very different from cscope.

thanks,

greg k-h