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You don't have to. There is a standard digital audio class for USB.

The stereo can be the USB host and the device can present an audio source, or the device can be the USB host and the stereo can be an audio output. The first is probably better, because it lets the stereo control the device.

Car stereos can implement this, or they can just mount the device through USB MTP or mass-storage protocols. Most car and home stereos with USB ports will do that.

Now, Apple has to think different. They have their own proprietary iPod Accessory Protocol for control and digital audio over USB. Proprietary sucks, but properly authenticated devices can get digital output of DRM content.

Some newer devices do license Apple's protocol. In fact, my Pioneer head unit lets me do iPhone to standard USB port on the head unit. (I actually use the charger cable for the Apple BT headset)

At least one embedded solution supports it:
http://www.jungo.com/st/embedded_usb_ipod.html

I really love The Art of Unix Programming. http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ Maybe the simplicity of the kernel confuses them. What they are probably looking for is a driver development kit. http://www.jungo.com/linux.html This is nice, but what about all the new features that are added to the kernel. Plus, what about different architectures? You can run linux on an Xbox now. Do the companies think about that? Open source would be nice, but only shows half the picture. I vote for full documentation of hardware and half written software. Have a relaxed use policy where the documentation can only be used to create drivers. The company could use code words in the driver that confuse people, but they still release the source code. The function printk could be renamed to eaksdjfkasd and it could still work, but it is more difficult to understand.

One rant of mine is restricted use of products. Who says I can't use a screwdriver as a hammer? Why can I use a piece of software in any (legal) way I want? Pencil and pen companies don't bother writers about wanting a share of the profits.

WE WANT AND NEED FULL DOCUMENTATION and k.i.s.s.

frank
fsuarez2005@yahoo.com

WxWindows appears to be the solution, yet it is "is a free C++ framework that facilitates cross platform software development, including GUIs, threads, sockets, database, file system access, etc." I remember of a sourceforge-hosted project that dealt specifically with cross-platform driver development, but the memory evades me at the moment. After a quick-search of google, appears Jungo WinDriver, but that wasn't the one I was thinking of.

Looking through the image the new wrv54g is running... wait for it... the wireless interface is a MODULE. lib/modules/islpci.o to be precise. The wrt54g... lib/modules/2.4.5/kernel/drivers/net/wl/wl.o.

And Linksys didn't write those drivers. The chip manufacturers did. And their current linux environment (wrv54g hardware) is a commercial environment from Jungo - OpenRG.

(BTW, the include files for the ipsec hardware crypto aren't there, so one cannot build the exact same kernel. I haven't dug through Intel's web site to see if they are available or not.)

Looking through the image the new wrv54g is running... wait for it... the wireless interface is a MODULE. lib/modules/islpci.o to be precise. The wrt54g... lib/modules/2.4.5/kernel/drivers/net/wl/wl.o.

And Linksys didn't write those drivers. The chip manufacturers did. And their current linux environment (wrv54g hardware) is a commercial environment from Jungo - OpenRG.

(BTW, the include files for the ipsec hardware crypto aren't there, so one cannot build the exact same kernel. I haven't dug through Intel's web site to see if they are available or not.)

Already been done.

Another wireless access point that runs Linux is Netgear WG602. You can find some very limited information about it here.

Is anyone working on something similar for this device?

I'm a Jungo Representative and I would like to clarify one thing. Jungo does provide special tool for developing USB (1.1/2.0) drivers, http://www.jungo.com/wdusb.html. This tool supports a lot of OS's like Windows, Linux, Solaris and etc. If you want you can download and try it for 30 days free of charge. If you have any other question please contact me.

Thanks,
Omer
omer@jungo.com

I'm a Jungo Representative and I would like to clarify one thing. Jungo does provide special tool for developing USB (1.1/2.0) drivers, http://www.jungo.com/wdusb.html. This tool supports a lot of OS's like Windows, Linux, Solaris and etc. If you want you can download and try it for 30 days free of charge. If you have any other question please contact me.

Thanks,
Omer
omer@jungo.com

I'm not a driver developer, but I've had to look into the possibility of cross-platform USB (and other) drivers before. Do yourself a favour and take a look at WinDriver (no, I have nothing whatsoever to do with the company or the product).

The initial cost can be a bit steep, but the ROI could well be worth it. The suite allows you to write a USB driver that is source-compatible over Win98/Me/2K/XP/2003, Linux 2.0/2.2/2.4, and WinNT, for USB 1.1/2.0 and UHCI, OHCI, or EHCI.

What, like this?

• Develop your device driver using their graphical Wizard (available in Windows only)
• And then use it for 30 days, unless you become a Registered User.

Note that the price of a WinDriver license runs somewhere between $1000 and $2000 (not 100% clear what the $1000 package is). Which means that if you want to use this to deploy a device driver, you get to pay out "a couple thousand bucks."

What is entirely unclear is what is the status of the resultant drivers. Is the code that is generated:

• Yours to do with as you like, including applying the GPL so that it could go into "official" kernels?
• Partially yours, and partially KRFTech's Driver Support Code, which you can't release?

  In such a case, the only way to use the results would be as a kernel module, due to the resultant license conflict...

• Partially KRFTech's, with a per-copy licensing fee?

I'm not "accusing" as the web site provides no indication one way or another. I'd find it surprising if the driver became "totally free," and that lack would put a big wrench in the "general interest" in the product.

I'll bet they sell some copies for organizations that plan to deploy Linux on embedded systems that are used internally; I suspect that the product is not of all that much "general interest."

• Develop your device driver using their graphical Wizard (available in Windows only)
• And then use it for 30 days, unless you become a Registered User.

Note that the price of a WinDriver license runs somewhere between $1000 and $2000 (not 100% clear what the $1000 package is). Which means that if you want to use this to deploy a device driver, you get to pay out "a couple thousand bucks."

What is entirely unclear is what is the status of the resultant drivers. Is the code that is generated:

• Yours to do with as you like, including applying the GPL so that it could go into "official" kernels?
• Partially yours, and partially KRFTech's Driver Support Code, which you can't release?

  In such a case, the only way to use the results would be as a kernel module, due to the resultant license conflict...

• Partially KRFTech's, with a per-copy licensing fee?

I'm not "accusing" as the web site provides no indication one way or another. I'd find it surprising if the driver became "totally free," and that lack would put a big wrench in the "general interest" in the product.

I'll bet they sell some copies for organizations that plan to deploy Linux on embedded systems that are used internally; I suspect that the product is not of all that much "general interest."