Re: user-space device drivers - hurd

[Thomas Schwinge]

On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 07:41:33AM -0700, Shakthi Kannan wrote:
> I am trying to understand the device driver interface
> between GNU Mach 1.3 and GNU Hurd (using Debian K8 on
> x86).

> But, I am looking for some basic (hello world?)
> example to understand how the device interfaces in GNU
> Hurd:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/gnumach-doc/mach_10.html#SEC89
> 
> interact with its particular GNU mach driver
> probe/open/close/read/write function in gnumach.

> Also, if we want to just write user-space device
> drivers on GNU Hurd to read/write from some I/O port
> or PCI memory space, can we do this?

I can't help you with your actual questions, but maybe your're
interested in haveing a look at the following, started by Robert Millan:
<URL:http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/user-drivers/>
#v+
The purpose of this project is the creating of drivers for the GNU system
that run on userspace and use the Hurd filesystem interfaces to provide
device access to frontend programs.
[...]
#v-

There's a keyboard driver (amongst other files) in the CVS repository;
perhaps having a look at it will help you with your problem.

I don't know if those user space drivers actually work or anything else
about that effort.

Please report back if you find something that seems worth being
reported.  :-)


Regards,
 Thomas