Problem Statement
What is a device driver in an operating system and how does it interact with hardware and the kernel?
Explanation
A device driver is a software component (often part of the OS kernel or a loadable module) that provides an interface between the operating system’s generic I/O framework and the specific hardware device. It handles initialization of the device, data transfer, interrupt handling, power management and clean-up. The OS kernel calls driver APIs to perform I/O, route interrupts to the driver, and manage resources like DMA channels or device memory. For interviews it is useful to highlight how drivers provide abstraction, manage concurrency and ensure safe access to hardware.
