《Essential Linux Device Drivers》序（中英文）

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

如果你手上正拿着這本書，你也許會問自己：為什麼還要有另一本Linux裝置驅動的書?這樣的書不是已經有一捆了嗎？

答案是：這本書相對于其他書籍來講是一個巨大的飛躍。

首先，這本書與時俱進，它基于最新的2.6核心進行講解。再者，更值得稱道的是，這本書對驅動的講解非常徹底。大不多裝置驅動的書籍僅僅講解了标準的Unix核心書籍或作業系統書籍中論述的主題，譬如序列槽、磁盤驅動和檔案系統等，如果你運氣好的話，它可能也會講解網絡協定棧。但是這本書卻走地更遠，它直面了你在現代PC和嵌入式系統中會遇到的PCMCIA、USB、I2C、視訊、音頻、Flash存儲器、無線通信等硬體裝置，而不是“猶抱琵琶半掩面”。你可以這樣定位這本書：如果Linux核心包含了什麼，這本書就會告訴你什麼。

它毫無遺漏，應有盡有，不留死角。

進而，本書的作者赢得了他的榮耀：讀到他在20世紀90年代末期就将Linux移植到某種手表上的故事就像在進行一次驚險的奇幻之旅。本書能成為Prentice Hall 出版社開源開發系列圖書的一部分，我感到非常高興。在開放源代碼領域發生這樣的事情，令人振奮，它将成為開源領域的光輝典範。

我希望你能從本書中找到你在進行核心開發時需要的東西，并且，你将享受此過程。

系列圖書編輯

 本文轉自 21cnbao 51CTO部落格，原文連結：http://blog.51cto.com/21cnbao/120000，如需轉載請自行聯系原作者