Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 15:04:59 -0800 (PST) From: Gary Kline <kline@tera.com> To: softweyr@xmission.com (Softweyr LLC) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: embed Message-ID: <199612192304.PAA02888@athena.tera.com> In-Reply-To: <199612192029.NAA09438@xmission.xmission.com> from Softweyr LLC at "Dec 19, 96 01:29:21 pm"
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According to Softweyr LLC: > > > i also hear that writing device drivers can be a real pain in the butt for > > UNIX (A2D cards, etc) ? any comments ? > > Writing device drivers for UNIX is certainly no more painful than > writing device drivers for any other OS. You at least have a kernel > debugger in FreeBSD and *rarely* ;^) have to resort to logic analyzers, > o-scopes, etc. Don't let the DOS-heads in the world frighten you about > working inside UNIX; at least you have the source to the system, and to > other drivers. > > I'll stick in my two-bits here since I wrote several drivers years ago. It is no more difficult than any other area of hacking: X-Window or kernel intrinsics or whatever. You buy a few good books and start at it. My first tty driver took a couple months to complete and polish. Second one took only 10 days. Dennis Ritchie's STREAMS was another learning curve, but in the end is a big win. The last driver was for my DeskJet I wrote to learn C++ and it was limping along in a few days. I agree that you shouldn't listen to any DOS-dweebs; the ones who consider DOS to be the best thing that God ever invented. Bottom line is that if hacking Unix requires more thought it is because Unix is strikingly more powerful. gary kline
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