plug Problem Solving Clinic! Yes please!

[David Campbell]

> From:          The Thought Assassin <assassin at sleepless.south.networx.net.au>

> On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, David Campbell wrote:
> > > Sounds like a good idea! Greg-the-Assassin was wondering about our next
> > > talk; Chris, is it possible to make the next UWA a
> > > bring-your-machines-lets-fix-it-now clinic? If so, I'll alert the media!
> > 
> > Count me in on this one.
> 
> Since a talk from David was the other possibility for this meeting, this
> makes it official. (pending approval from Chris of such shenannigans, I
> spose)
> 
> Does this mean you are going to be with us, then, David?
> Can we still have your drivers talk at a later date?

Currently my status is as follows:
a) Next week I am in Adelaide fixing an OpenVMS system (found out today)
b) The following week is a 50% chance that I will be in Singapore. I am 
   harassing the account manager to find out one way or another (will the 
   client fork over the money is the question). This would require a two 
   week stay (shopping expidition?) in Singapore.

I don't want to commit to a talk on 22nd only to find out 3 days before 
I won't be in the country. However if I am still in the country it sounds 
like it will be a fun evening, at least we will have audience 
participation.

I will be working on the presentation over the weekend (and next week) so 
it is something suitable for everyone (and not just budding kernel 
hackers).

Some of the items I *should* be covering in such a talk would be:
what is a kernel, what does a kernel do, what is a device file, what is
the difference between a block and char device, how do device drivers
interact between the user and the hardware, how hard is it to build a
driver, how do I build a module, what is module versioning used for, what
is the difference between 2.0.x and 2.1.x kernels (a quick run down of
kernel development), what is the structure of the kernel tree, known 
problems (anything else have I forgotten?)

David Campbell
=======================================================
campbell at torque.net

"All parallel ports are equal - Some are more equal than others"