A Linux-based engineering education with hardware implementation, device drivers' programming and network literacy learning

An example of information engineering education is introduced, which includes hardware implementation, systems programming on UNIX (Linux) and some kinds of network operation. At the stage of hardware implementation, students are to understand logical design and implement a simple microcomputer-based circuit to generate the specific sound. Device driver programming must be done at the next stage, which needs to connect the implemented hardware into a Linux-based workstation (test bed). At the same time, students must learn UNIX literacy in order to develop device driver in C language. The education environment of device driver programming can be separated into the two systems for the sake of efficiency and network literacy learning; one is for software development and another is for software execution (test and verification). Students must utilize remote Linux-based workstations through campus LAN from their note PC's. After their own device drivers are developed on remote workstations, theirs may be transferred to the target test bed, built into the Linux kernel of test bed, and verified whether both of hardware and device driver work correctly or not. It is very important that practical education is combined with hardware, software and moreover network-oriented literacy for information engineering. Our education scheme described in this paper will play a role of a suitable example for such a combination to achieve an effective information engineering education.