How to capture packets

While I surf the internet, I came across a web site(www.opensourceforu.com) about how to capture packets physical layer to application layer. I like this explanation:

Capturing packets means collecting data being transmitted on the network. Every time a network card receives an Ethernet frame, it checks if its destination MAC address matches its own. If it does, it generates an interrupt request. The routine that handles this interrupt is the network card’s driver; it copies the data from the card buffer to kernel space, then checks the ethertype field of the Ethernet header to determine the type of the packet, and passes it to the appropriate handler in the protocol stack. The data is passed up the layers until it reaches the user-space application, which consumes it.