The Open Source India – 2014 conference (organized by OSFY media) was held during November 7-8 at NIMHANS convention center, Bangalore. Team Emertxe participated by presenting a paper titled “A peek into Linux Device Driver Kit”, which was selected as a part of Kernel track. The paper was authored by Mr. Mubeen Jukaku, our technology head.

Learning device drivers in Linux environment is challenging even today. Lack of formal courses, lesser availability of documentation, diversified hardware, dynamic nature of open source and many related reasons makes it difficult for a beginner to learn it. Even for experienced folks, trying out advanced aspects of device drivers require sophisticated hardware which is not commonly available in the market. The open hardware approach (ex: Raspberry-pi) addresses generic learning approach, where gaining specific learning like the topic of device drivers is not possible.

In order to overcome these challenges, we have come up with a Linux Device Driver Kit. Designed as a self-learning kit, this kit provides dedicated hardware, well documented setup & installation guide, sample device drivers packaged together using open source software. There are many type of drivers that can be developed using this device. Providing the presentation slides that was shared in the conference (below) that has more details about the kit.

Team Emertxe spent quite a lot of time in the conference by visiting various booths that were available. It is really amazing to see big players like Microsoft, HP and Oracle etc… Giving big push for the Open source phenomenon, will write a detailed account on the same later.