DEVICE DRIVERS

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What is a Device Driver?

 A device driver is a program routine that links a

peripheral device to an operating system of a
computer. It is essentially a software program
that allows a user to employ a device, such as
a printer, monitor, or mouse (Levenson & Hertz, 1994).

 When a new hardware device is added to the computer, such as a CD-ROM drive,
a printer, or a sound card, its driver must be installed in order to run it. The operating
system “calls” the driver, and the driver “drives” the device.

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What is a Device Driver?

A Device driver is a software that is used

to control a hardware device and make
it work on a computer system (Abed, 2018).

 In Windows operating systems, a device driver file

usually has a file name suffix of DLL or EXE. A virtual
device driver usually has the suffix of VXD

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Application to access hardware device via device driver

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Device Drivers can be mainly classified into three groups

 Character driver – This category deals with the character devices i.e., which transfer
data character-by-character. Examples include consoles, serial port, sensors etc.

 Block driver – For the devices that transfer data by a block size (thus called block
devices), the corresponding driver is called block device driver. For example, CD-
ROM, USB devices etc.

 Network driver – The devices that allows us to connect to a network and use the
network interface services.

Example – Ethernet card, NIC (Network Interface Card) etc.

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What Device Driver does:

 It allows a system to interface with hardware devices.

 It provides uniform APIs to access hardware.

 A device driver converts general I/O instructions into device specific operations.

 It is a translator between the operating system and applications that use the
devices, and the devices.

 It is like a black box that means, if any user-application wants to interact with the
hardware, it must go through the corresponding device driver only and not
directly as it might cause any damage to the hardware.

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Why Device Drivers usually installed on System OS

A typical computing system (PC, PDA, POS devices etc.) deals with a variety of devices

or peripherals, making a hardware device work as expected is a cumbersome task.

 Instead of adding device driver code to every application, the operating system

provides a single point interface for all devices by hosting the device drivers

 Adding it under the operating systems provides the protection and security needed

for the device drivers from malicious use.

 The device drivers are essentially shared dynamically linked libraries.

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Locating Device Drivers on Mac OS HIGH SIERRA

 Hardware Device Drivers in Mac OS are typically in the form of Kernel Extensions and the primary
location is: /System/Library/Extensions/
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Locating Device Drivers on Windows 10 OS

 C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\

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Common Attributes of Device Drivers

 Kernel code
 Kernel interface
 Kernel mechanisms and services
 Loadable : run time
 Configurable: compile time
 Dynamic : device may not exist

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Devices & Driver Examples

 Drivers: - printer driver

- Bluetooth dongle driver,
- gamepad driver

 Devices: - USB stick (Pendrive)

- Gamepad
- Web Cam

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Examples of Driver I/O Instructions

 What do you with a device? {read, write}, {read only},

{write only}

 Lets look at some examples: USB device, CD-ROM, LED

Display,

 What do you do with a file? open, close, read, write, ..

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Kernel

 The kernel is a computer program that is the

core of a computer's operating system, with
complete control over everything in the system.
On most systems, it is one of the first programs
loaded on start-up.
 Types of Kernel : - Microkernel
- Monolithic kernel

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Kernel

 The kernel's interface is a low-level abstraction

layer.
 When a process makes requests of the kernel, it is
called a system call.
 A monolithic kernel runs all the operating
system instructions in the same address space for
speed.
 A microkernel runs most processes in user space

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 Splitting the Kernel 16

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HOW OS KERNEL INTERFACES WITH DEVICE DRIVERS & DEVICES

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MICROKERNEL

MONOTHOLIC KERNEL

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REFERENCES

 http://www.homesaustin.com/Documents/DeviceDrivers.pdf
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(operating_system)
 https://static.lwn.net/images/pdf/LDD3/ch01.pdf
 https://www.vlsifacts.com/device-drivers-role-and-types/
 https://images.google.com

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THANK YOU
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