Device Drivers

Submitted by:
Nischal Subedi (BCT/070/24)
Sabitri Shrestha (BCT/070/31)
Sagar Baral
(BCT/070/32)
Shristi Adhikari (BCT/070/41)

Presentation overview
Introduction to device drivers
Why a device drivers?
Function of Device drivers
Device drivers design
Applications
References

What is a device driver?

Device driver or a software driver is a
software that acts as a bridge between the
operating system and the hardware.
It allows higher-level computer programs to
interact with a
hardware device.

Why a device driver ?

Device Drivers can provide a level of security
as they can run in kernel-mode, thereby
protecting the operating system from
applications running in user-mode.
Ring 3
Ring 2
Ring
1
Ring 0

Lest Privileged

Kernel
Device
Drivers
Device
Drivers
Applications

Most Privileged

Privilege rings
available

Why a device driver ?

A device driver simplifies programming by acting as an
abstraction layer between a hardware device and the applications
or operating systems that use it
The higher-level application code can be written independently of
whatever specific hardware device it will ultimately control, as it
can interface with it in a standard way, regardless of the
underlying hardware.
The device-driver accepts the generic high-level commands and
breaks them into a series of low-level device-specific commands as
required by the device being driven.

Does every hardware or a device

connected to pc requires device driver?
No when you buy an operating system many device
drivers are built in into operating system itself.
However 3-6 months down the line if you attach a
device which your operating system doesn't
understand then device driver is required.

Functions:
A device driver processes the request of an application and
then sends the instruction to the hardware device to produce
the output. This is how the display information is sent from
the operating system to the display or monitor. A device
driver typically has a configuration interface that can be
accessed so that the user can make adjustments to the
hardware device.

Device Driver design

Device drivers can be abstracted into logical and physical layers.

Device Driver Design..

Applications of device driver:

Because of the diversity of modernhardwareand operating

systems, drivers operate in many different environments.
Drivers mayinterface with:
Printers
Video adapters
Network Cards
Sound Cards
Devices such asHard Disk,CD-ROMandFloppy Diskbuses
(ATA,SATA,SCSI)
Image Scanners
Digital Cameras etc

References
Websites
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
#Device_drivers
www.tutorialspoint.com/operating_system/os
_io_software.htmwww.tjdl.uh.edu/articles/1/le
ctures/tables.cfm
www.searchenterprisedesktop.techtarget.co
m/definition/device-driver

Books
Linux Device Drivers
By Jonathan Corbet, Alessandro Rubini,
Greg Kroah-Hartman

Thank you