There exists a widely used Application Programmers Interface (API) called PC/SC which abstracts the various Smartcard readers available. In this document, the GemPlus GemPC410 reader will be used as an example, although there are many other readers which may work (see the Resources at the end of this document).
Under Linux, this API is implemented as a two tier system; your application uses the PC/SC API to talk to a middleware resource manager. The resource manager then talks to one or more readers using reader specific drivers. In this way the middleware need be set up only once for each reader and all applications are reader agnostic.
Linux implements a subset of PC/SC called PC/SC lite. Details of this API may be obtained from the MUSCLE web-site (see Resources). For most uses, existing PC/SC programs may be ported simply to the PC/SC lite API.
It is outside the scope of this document to provide a tutorial on PC/SC lite programming although many such documents can be found on the Internet.