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Operating Systems Linux Fedora Is Kernel module is the same as a device driver? Post 302518687 by newlinuxuser1 on Sunday 1st of May 2011 09:08:40 AM
Old 05-01-2011
Is Kernel module is the same as a device driver?

I have been reading prep questions for my second unix academy exam, and there's a nuance, I'm not sure I understand it correctly.
I've been under impression from my readings of book by Evi Nemeth and from unix academy DVDs I've been watching, that kernel's modules are drivers. I think of it, as there are standard drivers that come precompiled as a part of a kernel, and some drivers that are not part of a "standard setup", so we load them when necessary as modules.
Now, I see in my readings and in the DVDs, modules and drivers are discussed on separate occasions, which makes me confused! Are they the same or they aren't? I mean, is this "module" and "driver" terminology is interchangeable and it is just figure of speech, or there's real difference between them?
 

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DRIVER_MODULE(9)					   BSD Kernel Developer's Manual					  DRIVER_MODULE(9)

NAME
DRIVER_MODULE -- kernel driver declaration macro SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/param.h> #include <sys/kernel.h> #include <sys/bus.h> #include <sys/module.h> DRIVER_MODULE(name, busname, driver_t driver, devclass_t devclass, modeventhand_t evh, void *arg); MULTI_DRIVER_MODULE(name, busname, driver_t drivers[], devclass_t devclass, modeventhand_t evh, void *arg); DESCRIPTION
The DRIVER_MODULE() macro declares a kernel driver. DRIVER_MODULE() expands to the real driver declaration, where the phrase name is used as the naming prefix for the driver and its functions. Note that it is supplied as plain text, and not a char or char *. busname is the parent bus of the driver (PCI, ISA, PPBUS and others), e.g. 'pci', 'isa', or 'ppbus'. The identifier used in DRIVER_MODULE() can be different from the driver name. Also, the same driver identifier can exist on different busses, which is a pretty clean way of making front ends for different cards using the same driver on the same or different busses. For example, the following is allowed: DRIVER_MODULE(foo, isa, foo_driver, foo_devclass, NULL, NULL); DRIVER_MODULE(foo, pci, foo_driver, foo_devclass, NULL, NULL); driver is the driver of type driver_t, which contains the information about the driver and is therefore one of the two most important parts of the call to DRIVER_MODULE(). The devclass argument contains the kernel-internal information about the device, which will be used within the kernel driver module. The evh argument is the event handler which is called when the driver (or module) is loaded or unloaded (see module(9)). The arg is unused at this time and should be a NULL pointer. MULTI_DRIVER_MODULE() is a special version of DRIVER_MODULE(), which takes a list of drivers instead of a single driver instance. SEE ALSO
device(9), driver(9), module(9) AUTHORS
This manual page was written by Alexander Langer <alex@FreeBSD.org>. BSD
May 16, 2000 BSD
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