Hello everyone, I am interested in Linux kernel programming (and OS kernels and general), and I am currently reading several books about Linux kernel. I have a few questions about it: 1.) Currently, I am reading 2 books about Linux kernel: Linux Device Drivers (3rd edition) and Linux Kernel Development (3rd edition). I like both books and I am learning a lot from them. I heard that both of this books are outdated, but so far all the information in this books seems valid and applicable. Is there better books you would recommend? 2.) In Linux Device Drivers, it states that module_exit(function) is discarded if module is built directly into kernel or if kernel is compiled with option to disallow loadable modules. But what if the module still has to do something during shutdown? Releasing memory is unimportant since it does not persist over reboot, but what if the module has to write something to a disk file, or do some other action? 3.) What's the deal with different kernel versions? I heard back in the 2.x days, even kernels were stable and odd versions were experimental, but with 2.6 it changed. So with 3.x kernels, are all of them experimental in the beginning and stable in the end? Also, with 3.x new versions seem to be released more often than in 2.1-2.5 days. Did the release cycle get smaller or is it just my imagination? Also, what does rc number mean? 4.) Currently, I am running linux-next, and it works great. Am I correct to assume that linux-next is supposed to have newest, shiniest and most unstable features? `uname -a` says that I am still running 3.8-next, but there is already 3.9 out. So which version is more experimental and least stable? Which one is the newest? 5.) How exactly does make/.config work? When I run `make oldconfig`, does it use the everything from the previous .config and only ask how to configure new features? And when I run `make` does it re-use old object files if nothing was changed in the specific file, or does it re-compile everything from scratch? Thank you, Kostyantyn Kovalskyy (Konstantin Kowalski) _______________________________________________ Kernelnewbies mailing list Kernelnewbies@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies
