Chapter 2. Building and Running Modules

It's almost time to begin programming. This chapter introduces all the essential concepts about modules and kernel programming. In these few pages, we build and run a complete (if relatively useless) module, and look at some of the basic code shared by all modules. Developing such expertise is an essential foundation for any kind of modularized driver. To avoid throwing in too many concepts at once, this chapter talks only about modules, without referring to any specific device class.

All the kernel items (functions, variables, header files, and macros) that are introduced here are described in a reference section at the end of the chapter.