From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 13 03:00:50 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5817416A4CE for ; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 03:00:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp.tele.fi (smtp.tele.fi [192.89.123.25]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 77EB643D4C for ; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 03:00:49 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Teemu.Parkkinen@patria.fi) Received: from hubns01.patria.fi (unknown [193.209.168.1]) by smtp.tele.fi (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0B37C46557 for ; Tue, 13 Apr 2004 13:00:48 +0300 (EEST) To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailer: Lotus Notes Release 5.0.8 June 18, 2001 Message-ID: From: Teemu.Parkkinen@patria.fi Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 12:44:35 +0300 X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on HUBNS01/HUB/PATRIA(Release 5.0.11 |July 24, 2002) at 13.04.2004 13:01:40 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: Digital-tv card drivers and API discussion X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 10:00:50 -0000 Hi all, I am about to write a digital tv-driver for my dvb-c -card. Because FreeBSD does not yet have any dvb-devices and I don't have any prior driver development experience, I have a couple of questions for you. 1) Should we use Linux-DVB API as a reference, or should we consider some changes to it? The API seems to be constantly changing and improving. Version 3 is available here: http://www.linuxtv.org/download/dvb/linux-dvb-api-1.0.0.pdf but they are currently working on version 4. In my opinion, the API should be minimal, but complete, so there is no need to constantly add new features to it. 2) As linux kernel is GPL-licensed, I cannot just port the linux driver to FreeBSD, right? In other words, we have to write the driver from scratch. In this case we don't have to stick with the Linux DVB-API and therefore I suggest that we give think the api through before deciding how we implement it (do we follow linux api or not). 3) Do you have any pointers to good books or other documentation on how to write device drivers for UNIX (BSD)? I already have read those from FreeBSD documentation, but a decent book would be handy. - Teemu Parkkinen