Learning about/modifying drivers

[Eric House <ehouse@Eng.Sun.COM>]

I need a crash course on Linux drivers.

I'm frustrated with the fact that the driver for SCSI CD-ROMs doesn't
allow direct access to audio tracks.  Since my hardware supports
"ripping" running NT I'd like to modify the necessary Linux driver to
allow the same thing on Debian -- or at least to understand why it
can't be done.

I'm a pretty good C/C++ programmer, but have minimal experience on
Linux/Unix.  And none with drivers.  I don't even understand the
relationship between drivers and device files very thoroughly.  Where
to begin?  How do I figure out what source files to modify, who the
author/maintainers are -- and later how drivers work?  Please
recommend books, point me at source files/HOWTOs, etc.

Thanks!

--Eric House