ALSA stands for the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. It consists of a set of kernel drivers, an application programming interface (API) library and utility programs for supporting sound under Linux.

Looks simple enough; you would think there is not much overhead with only those two system calls. In reality, this couldn't be further from the truth. Behind those two calls, the data has been copied ...

As more people and companies start to write Linux kernel code, understanding acceptable kernel programming coding style and conventions is very important. This article starts out by explaining the ...

Editors' Note: This article has been updated since its original posting. Software and hardware engineers who have to deal with byte and bit order issues know the process is like walking a maze. Though ...

Software radio is the technique of getting code as close to the antenna as possible. It turns radio hardware problems into software problems. The fundamental characteristic of software radio is that ...

Data backup is a crucial aspect of information management. Both businesses and individuals face risks such as hard drive failure, human error or cyberattacks, which ...

Matthias Ettrich is the creator of the KDE desktop environment. Below, Aleksey Dolya interviews Matthias about the process of creating KDE and what he's up to these days. Aleksey Dolya: Matthias, ...

With NSA Security-Enhanced Linux now integrated into the 2.6 kernel and making its way into distributions, an increasing number of people likely will be installing SELinux and experimenting with it.

In last month's article, we saw how the Linux input subsystem worked inside the kernel, ending with a quick mention of the event handlers. Each handler essentially provides a different user-space API, ...

If you've written any amount of bash code, you've likely come across the trap command. Trap allows you to catch signals and execute code when they occur. Signals are asynchronous notifications that ...

In the quest to make small devices cost effective, manufacturers often need to think about reducing the memory size. One option is to find alternative implementations of the abstract data types (ADTs) ...

Have you ever wondered how system calls can be intercepted? Have you ever tried fooling the kernel by changing system call arguments? Have you ever wondered how debuggers stop a running process and ...