Difference between HAL and Drivers

Question

Following to my post I'd like to know what's the difference between drivers and HAL ?

See http://source.android.com/devices/camera.html – Michael Jun 28 '13 at 12:22 — Michael, Jun 28 '13 at 12:22

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 04 '17 at 13:10

3

From this doc:

HAL The hardware abstraction layer defines the standard interface that the camera service calls into and that you must implement to have your camera hardware function correctly.

Kernel driver The camera's driver interacts with the actual camera hardware and your implementation of the HAL. The camera and driver must support YV12 and NV21 image formats to provide support for previewing the camera image on the display and video recording.

enter image description here

edited May 04 '17 at 13:10

Sam Protsenko

14,045
4
59
75

answered Jun 28 '13 at 12:26

stinepike

54,068
14
92
112

So if I add a camera on an Android tablet I need the HAL and a driver ? – Armand Jun 28 '13 at 12:30
As they are totally different things I think you should have both of them.. But honestly speaking I don't have personal experience in it .. so you better explore a bit with the docs – stinepike Jun 28 '13 at 12:33

Difference between HAL and Drivers

1 Answers1