I did something recently I haven’t done in a long time: I recompiled the Linux kernel. There was a time when this was a common occurrence. You might want a feature that the default kernel didn’t ...

If you’ve used Linux for a long time, you know that we are spoiled these days. Getting a new piece of hardware back in the day was often a horrible affair, requiring custom kernels and lots ...

Editor's Note: Linux remains an attractive option for embedded systems developers. In fact, industry surveys such as the Embedded Market Study by UBM (EDN's parent company) consistently show interest ...

Kernel modules are chunks of code that are loaded and unloaded into the kernel as needed, thus extending the functionality of the kernel without requiring a reboot. In fact, unless users inquire about ...

More than 135 Linux kernel developers have signed a document in protest of vendors that create closed-source code modules for the kernel, calling the practice “harmful and undesirable.” The developers ...

When you write programs in user space, the worst thing that can happen to your program is a core dump. Your program did something very wrong, so the operating system decided to give you all of its ...

Alexei Starovoitov posted some patches to allow the kernel to load regular ELF binaries (aka plain executables) as kernel modules. These modules would be able to run user-mode helper routines instead ...

Up until about 10 years ago I wrote a lot of Linux device drivers. The last one I wrote was in '03, needless to say I'm out of practice (and out of date, that was for a 2.4 kernel). I've got 2 ...

NVIDIA has this week announced it is now publishing Linux GPU kernel modules as open source with dual GPL/MIT license. First making available the R515 driver with the source code now available for the ...