User space approach to audio device driving on UNIX-like systems
Robert Millan Hernandez · 2015
The proposed project attempts to resolve some of the inconvenience factors related to implementing device drivers in kernel space, by using a different approach. With the goals of simplifying development efforts and of maximizing performance, design decisions have been taken in the majority of UNIX-like operating systems to implement their kernels using a monolithic design and to build most device driver subsystems into them. This has a number of drawbacks which this proposal document will elaborate on. The proposed project will attempt to resolve these drawbacks by implementing a driver framework entirely in user space. The proposal is to do this specifically for sound devices because this appears to be a very suitable class of drivers for this kind of experiment.