<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Preface</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Linux Loadable Kernel Module HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Linux Loadable Kernel Module HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Introduction to Linux Loadable Kernel Modules" HREF="x73.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Linux Loadable Kernel Module HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x73.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="AEN64" ></A >1. Preface</H1 ><P >Copyright and license information, as well as credits, are at the end of this document.</P ><P >This HOWTO is maintained by Bryan Henderson, bryanh@giraffe-data.com. You can get the current version of this HOWTO from <A HREF="http://tldp.org" TARGET="_top" >the Linux Documentation Project</A >.</P ><P >This document is mainly geared toward Linux 2.4. It covers secondarily earlier Linux. It covers newer Linux only partially, but the author's goal to cover it completely in a future release. See in particular <A HREF="linuxversions.html" >Section 12</A >. The subject changed quite a bit over the course of Linux 2.5 releases, and this document ignores 2.5, since the 2.5 releases were not considered production releases. Instead, the document treats all the changes in 2.5 releases as if they were new with Linux 2.6.</P ><P >See <A HREF="history.html" >Section 17</A > for a history of the document.</P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x73.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Linux Loadable Kernel Module HOWTO</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Introduction to Linux Loadable Kernel Modules</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >