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lm-sensors/doc/developers/new_drivers
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These are the steps you should follow to write a new driver and
submit it to us so that it will be applied cleanly to our package.
* Contact us first.
You are of course free to write your own drivers, but it is smart to
check first nobody else is already working on it.
Check our "New Drivers" page for information also.
* Write the new driver.
For a chip driver, use lm78.c as template. For an SMBus-only adapter,
use i2c-piix4.c. Use i2c-via.c for an I2C-level adapter.
Usually, we make all prefixes start with the driver name. This is not
really necessary, as these symbols will not be exported anyway. But by
doing this, you are sure you do not shadow any global kernel names.
Remember that you want to output the direct measurements done by the
chip. If these sensor values need scaling, this should be done through
the configuration file.
* Meet Kernel coding standards
See Documentation/CodingStyle in the kernel source.
Be sure and use 8 column tabs.
* Add the driver to the Makefile.
Usually, you can just add it to KERNEL{CHIPS,DRIVERS}TARGETS in the
Module.mk file in the directory itself.
* Make sure it compiles cleanly.
If you compile with 'make WARN=1', you usually get many additional
warnings. Please resolve these too, even if you know they are
harmless. Do the same with 'make DEBUG=1 WARN=1' if you use debugging
information. Remember, things put between #ifdef DEBUG #endif may never
stop the driver from functioning; they should just output additional
information.
* Check for external symbols
'nm --extern --defined' should only output symbols starting with __module,
cleanup_module, init_module and some kernel versioning symbols. Mark all
other symbols as static in your source file.
* Test the module
This is usually the boring part...
Test both with 2.2.x and 2.4.x kernels.
* Add detection information to prog/detect/sensors-detect
This is a perl script that automatically detects what chips and adapters
are present. Contact Frodo if you need help.
* Add chip information to lib/chips.{c,h} for chip drivers
Until you have done this, the chip will be invisible for user-level
programs. Again, contact Frodo if you need help with this.
* Add entries to etc/sensors.conf.eg
If needed, you can set defaults here.
* Add a dedicated procedure to prog/sensors/chips.[ch]
This makes the included sensors program pretty-print your chip information.
* Add the name of the device to the README file.
* Add your name to the CONTRIBUTORS file.
* Add entries to the CHANGES file.
* Write a doc/chips/xxx or doc/busses/xxx file.
* Make sure the GPL boilerplate and your name (and if applicable your
company's name) is at the top of the
new driver so we know you are giving it to us under the GPL.
* Submit the changes to us a patch against CVS.
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Checklist for mkpatch support, after the driver is tested and stable:
* Add files to mkpatch/FILES.
* Add config help to mkpatch/mkpatch.pl.
* Add initialization call to bottom of kernel/sensors.c.