e-Picture

Be Developers:
Put your banner here!

 cubeprefsicon graphic [Bar]


Developing for BeOS
BeOS Internals

 

Will it be hard for new PCI boards with 3D graphics accelerators and media processors to be integrated in the BeOS? In other words, can you create user-level OS extensions (new disk controllers, graphics cards, etc.)?

Top Up << ||
Developing for BeOS:
BeOS Internals
FAQ Number:
FAQ-0128
Last Modified:
2/3/98
Keywords:
BeOS, Developing, Internals, driver, kernel
It is possible to develop drivers for new PCI cards as they become available. Drivers being dynamically loaded, no kernel relinking is necessary. You just need to drop the driver binary in the proper system folder, and you can then start playing with it.

The case of disk drivers is a bit more subtle. If you are designing a driver for a device you want to boot from, you obviously cannot rely on the dynamic loader in the kernel (our kernel itself is loaded from the boot device). This is why we have the drivers for all the boot devices statically linked with the boot ROM of the BeBox and the kernel.


<< Can I get source code for the mouse driver?     ||


Copyright © 1999 by Be, Inc. All rights reserved. Legal information (includes icon usage info).
Comments, questions, or confessions about our site? Please write the Webmaster.