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Can this new Raspberry Pi, or the CHIP, support the linux gadget framework so you can make the whole board appear as a USB device, like a memory stick, when you plug it into a desktop computer?

I was thinking he was the poor sucker with a first generation iMac where the USB wasn't even 2.0. (and where the firmware is set so that it CANNOT boot from an external USB DVD-ROM drive)

Put some Firewire in that Altivec Unit and let's Retina our way to joyland!

Excuse me, but when the first gen iMac debuted in 1998 (nevermind when it was designed, likely in 1997) there simply wasn't a USB 2.0. It wasn't even released as a spec until TWO YEARS LATER.

BTW, the first versions of Windows to support USB 2.0 are Windows 2000 (in SP4) (June, 2003), and Windows XP. The earliest of those would be Windows XP (very limited support until SP1 was released in September, 2002). There is no official USB 2.0 Support in ANY "Win9x" variant.

As for Macs, the first desktop Mac to support USB 2.0 was the iMac G4 1.0GHz (Sunflower design), introduced on September 8, 2003; and the first Mac Laptop to incorporate USB 2.0 appears to be the PowerBook G4 1.0 12 inch DVI model, Released essentially at the same time, on September 16, 2003. This means that USB 2.0 Support was added to OS X 10.3 (Panther), Released on October 24, 2003.

As for Linux, LIMITED"Experimental" USB 2.0 support for SOME USB hardware was available in the 2.4.16 Kernel (don't know the exact release date); but full USB 2.0 support was added to the 2.6.0 Kernel, released on December 17, 2003.

So, from what I can see, USB 2.0 support came at virtually the same time for OS X, Windows and Linux-based PCs.

Got it? As for the rest of your nonsensical post: Grow up.

It is. And if they get their own USB:ID and are otherwise a complete knock-off, that's great.

http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.i...

The problem is all the phone calls to FTDI's customer support line complaining that the cheap-shit underdesigned parts aren't working to spec. or that the drivers are broken and the users "demand a fix" when the problem is with a device FTDI didn't build, and didn't make any money from to support driver development and customer support.

They have every right to have thier drivers detect the non-genuine parts, report them and refuse to work with them. Bricking them is clearly causing intentional harm to equipment they don't own. Never excusable.

This isn't a recent change; component distributors such as mecanique (see https://web.archive.org/web/20070825070852/http://www.mecanique.co.uk/products/usb/pid.html) used to on-sell blocks of PIDs from their VID many years ago, but the USB-IF started cracking down a number of years ago. Likewise, voti.nl was threatened with legal action (see http://www.voti.nl/shop/catalog.html?USB-PID-10).

For some projects, you can obtain a PID from the manufacturer of a USB chip (eg http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Knowledgebase/caniuseftdisvidformypr.htm), but this generally means using the manufacturer supplied driver, and doesn't really help if you want to customize things more.

There doesn't seem to be a reasonable solution for small runs beyond the prototype phase. So in effect the USB-IF is motivating hobbyists to simply reuse VID/PID pairs from similar devices, which is only going to lead to compatibility headaches in the future.

I can understand that they wish to have an orderly process so that operating systems can have automatic device recognition and driver installation, but it is short-sighted not to provide an opportunity to licence a much smaller address space at a reasonable cost.

(For futher information, the prototype VID is 0x6666 and many known VID/PID pairs in http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids)

There's a company that licensed a VID before usb.org prohibited sub-selling PIDs and sells them here.
OpenMoko are licensing their PIDs for FOSS use here.
List of zombie VIDs here.

Just looking over this: http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids first list I could find of Vendor IDs.

Seems a simple solution. Name a new standard "CSB" or Compatible Serial Bus. It is identical to USB in every way, except reserves several sections of the VID range that are currently unused (there are many there is plenty of ID space) to be designated through this new body.

Then tell them which ranges you chose and that they can go fuck themselves, as they will be screwing over any vendor they assign those VIDs to, knowing that somebody else is claiming them and they are likely to cause conflicts.

Problem solved.

One brand: Hanlin Get it, use it, forget the rest.

Supports all common formats, ARM9 running Linux. No DRM, no wifi connecting on your back to delete your stuff, simple usb mass storage transfer...

Was interested so did a little searching. The Linux OS is Wolf Linux, not real familiar with it, though I am sure others may be. Before you can develop with Wolf Linux here is what the company said, "We will provide the SDK of all of our products based on Linux OS, not only provide it to OEM and ODM, but also to personal cooperators. But the cooperators need to sign a cooperation agreement with us, which will relate to the management of version and DRM."

So much for no DRM. I noted that the guy said In China, we don't want V2 to affect the sales of V8 in our local market, because in China nobody would like to pay more 50 dollars to buy a product only for supporting PDF and DOC formats..

Seems like the Chinese are a bit smarter than us Americans... not paying more than $50 for a product that will only support and read .pdf and .doc formats. Makes sense to me. If your Smart hand held device/phone,whatever is not limited, tethered, restricted why on earth would you buy a separate device (Kindle, Hanlin, eBook Reader) just to read .pdfs, .docs or worse yet some proprietary vendor lock-in file format? This device, like the Kindle, does not let you use .odt open source file formats used by OpenOffice.org Writer either.

I also came across references to Wolfenstein Linux, the posts I saw were dated, circa 2002, which might explain the slower USB in the device, USB 1.1. The Linux kernel was rewritten, between 1.0 and 2.0 I believe to optimize it for faster USB access. Regardless here is information on USB and Linux. It is my understanding the the new kernels are backwards compatible with the older versions of the USB drivers. Regardless, why use an embedded Linux that does not support at least USB 2.0. Not sure which kernel version is in Wolf Linux, but believe a 2.6.x kernel or better would be better.

The Hanlin's processor is only a 200 mhz processor, and the SD supposedly only supports up to 4GB. I think I would want better than only 4GB today, especially since I have seen sales on 16GB and 32GB Micro SSD cards for under $20 per

To add insult to injury, the Hanlin does not have WiFi, why you think that is a good thing I am not quite sure. The Nokia N800 has WiFi and bluetooth and can be picked up used for under $200. Faster processor, GPS, and more. If you must have cellular than get the N900 and have all three, WiFi, Bluetooth and Cellular.

I believe the bluetooth, in addition to working with a full sized foldable keyboard can be used with Linux software to work as a remote for some LCD TVs and Home built Linux DVD/Recorders.

Probably wise to heed the Chinese and not pay more than $50 dollars for a separate device only for reading .pdf and .doc files.

Assuming Google starts allowing you to root the Android, something they prefer people not do right now, any eReader would have to offer feature better than the Nokia N800, N900 and Android phones running Linux. That is the new minimum.

Networking over USB would be awesome.

USB doesn't work like that. USB is a master->slave specification whereas firewire has mastermaster functionality. Networking is a mastermaster type of relationship.

With that out of the way, some manufacturer somewhere had a device between two USB connectors that did what you are describing. It is/was in the USB Gadgets section and I didn't have the patience to fiddle with it. http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget/

make sure you are on USB 2.0- interface can kill you.

Also did you check the faq-

No seriously:

http://www.linux-usb.org/FAQ.html#i5

especially the section on:

Q: What is max_sectors and how should I use it?

A:For USB Mass Storage devices (that is, devices which use the usb-storage driver) max_sectors controls the maximum amount of data that will be transferred to or from the device in a single command. As the name implies this transfer length is measured in sectors, where a sector is 512 bytes (that's a logical sector size, not necessarily the same as the size of a physical sector on the device). Thus for example, max_sectors = 240 means that a single command will not transfer more than 120 KB of data.

Consider that you don't need a special driver for a particular brand of ATAPI CD-ROM drive, or for a particular USB Mass Storage Device. Heck, Windows has USB class drivers for Bluetooth devices, smart-card devices, hubs, HIDs (keyboards, mice, CueCats and such), mass storage devices, printers, PTP-protocol scanners and cameras, audio devices, modems and video devices. Linux has a variety of supported class drivers as well. There are, of course, more classes, and that's all just for USB devices.

Sure, there are a lot of corner cases and pathological hardware--I think video cards are the best example--but it's entirely possible and indeed desirable to support all kinds of devices in the kernel. Even if sometimes we have to say goodbye to one of them, it was worth it to have them around.

I know shouldn't feed you, but please be aware of
http://www.linux-usb.org/devices.html .

I work with a lot of weird devices and have gotten almost all of them to work.

I know shouldn't feed you, but please be aware of
http://www.linux-usb.org/devices.html .

I work with a lot of weird devices and have gotten almost all of them to work.

The API makes it easy for peripherals and other devices embedding GNU/Linux system software to act in the USB "device" (slave) role. The drivers implementing and using that API combine to make a useful driver framework for Linux systems that implement USB peripherals.

A good number of USB webcams should work out of the box if you're running a decent stock kernel from your distro (i.e. suitable modules are pre-compiled and ready to use). Others have binary drivers only. Unfortunately there is no USB device class for video devices, so webcam implementation is probably not as solid as most linux USB support. A detailed list of supported devices can be found at http://www.linux-usb.org/devices.html

There is a standard for USB modems, although not all modems follow it.

A builtin modem is almost always a software modem (winmodem). Even Apple has switched to software modems for their laptops/desktops.

I like the ad-blocking hosts file idea... why not just publish a text file called hosts.ads that can be appended to the end of a users existing /etc/hosts file? I have a script that I use to automatically update my pci.ids and usb.ids file(s). These files help me keep the output of lspci and lsusb current on my PC. Why not use a moderated hosts files system to do something similar for AD servers?

Does anything like this currently exist?

Or how about adding a feature to Mozilla, et al. that would allow a user to right-click on an advertisement and anonymously submit the URL/imagesize/etc. of the offending ad so it can be blocked for others.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueler? Anyone?

USB hard-drives, digital cameras, even all-in-one printers work the same way, so once you've solved it for one you've solved for all. The only headache I have is that /dev/sda will always be the first thing you plug in after a reboot...

To get them to work, see the The Linux USB sub-system Chapter 2. How to get USB devices working under Linux

OK, now for the update... For anyone who is curious, using a stock 2.6.0 when trying to boot a USB device doesn't work (at least on my system). Here is a document that explains the reasons why -- there isn't enough delay before INIT starts to load. The solution is to add a patch to the kernel that continually retries loading, at one second intervals.

Support for USB 2.0! Great!

Wait a minute... is that HIGH SPEED, or FULL SPEED?


From this page:

Today, most devices and systems support USB version 1.1, which supported two device speeds: low speed at 1.5 Mbit/sec, and full speed at 12 Mbit/sec. USB 2.0 is appearing in current product designs, and one of its main features is adding a new speed: high speed, at 480 Mbit/sec.

To put it another way: USB 1.1 was OK for low speed devices like mice and keyboards, and even for medium speed ones like Ethernet (10 Mbit/sec) adapters, or consumer electronics gadgets that only exchange a few megabytes of data (like many digital still cameras and MP3 players). USB 2.0 "full speed" or "low speed" is effectively just the familiar old "USB 1.1". You need USB 2.0 high speed to get reasonable speed for multiple large transfers as with some PC peripherals like disk drives (including MP3 jukeboxes :) or high resolution webcams (USB video), or get concurrent use from a bunch of 100BaseT networking adapters.

I think this answers your question.

How the hell is this insightful!? It's FUD!

Windows XP has USB 2.0

Wow, what an innovation... they have drivers for USB 2.0 devices. Wow... So do we.

it has low-latency audio

Let's see, does Linux...? Yep, we got that too.

it can play DVDs

Wow, do you think other platforms could do that? Yes, I think so.

it has translucent windows

Well actually, it doesn't. However, these guys have had it for a while and these guys are pretty close.

built-in NAT

Linux has had this since version 2.0. It worked great even back in 1999.

drag-and-drop CD recording

OKay, I'll conceed on this point, but I'll definitely mention you could find this here before Microsoft ever had a clue. As for XP drag and drop CD recording... it still doesn't work right.

an MPEG-4 media player

Once again, I reference these guys again. What's so impressive about that? Microsoft aren't even the people who introduced it.

it has an encrypted, compressed file system

Well, let's see here... yes, we definite have that too. As a matter of fact, I've been using encrypted file systems in Linux for years. As far as I recall, I was doing that before Windows was. No wait, Windows still doesn't offer encryption beneath the file system. Weak.

they have fine-grained access controls

Only very recently. Linux has enjoyed ACL from here and here as well.

they have a common language runtime

Funny thing is it was implemented by the open source community faster than Microsoft did.

They are pushing and developing modern programming languages so that we aren't all stuck programming in C.

A language is a tool Some languages are good for some tasks, some are better for others. For example, you couldn't quite write an operating system in Lisp like you could with C. To make this point shows how much of a fool you are. By the way, GCC compiles langauges other than C too.

Some of this technology sucks, and most of it they didn't invent, but they are pushing new technology.

Yes, most of it does suck but none of it is new. Microsoft only pushes regurgitations of what the rest of the industry has had (often for years).

(I also know that most of this stuff is available on linux, but it's also kind of a pain in the ass.)

I don't see any problems. None of what you mentioned was hard to find nor is any of it any harder to use than in Windows. For example, I play a DVD by loading my DVD player and press the button with the little triangle on it (play).

Your "points" fall down to absolutely nothing. Microsoft offers no advantages, just disadvantages over open source technologies.

You sir are a major corporate whore, completely deceived, clueless, not too bright, and giving free marketing hype to a multibillion dollar company. How does that make you feel?

> Windows XP has USB 2.0
linux-usb.org
Linux seems to have had this since June 2001

>it has low-latency audio
this depends on the kernel, but there are already distributions focused on this

Linux Journal

> it can play DVDs, MPEG-4 media player
MPlayer is faster than the WMP and plays video better, IMHO

> it has translucent windows
I guess everyone misses this...

> built-in NAT
What is built in? automatic you mean?

> drag-and-drop CD recording
have you ever tried the _Built-in_ Nautilus cd burner? gnome.ftp

> it has an encrypted
Last I checked this is also built in, take a look at the Linux Kernel
> compressed file system
same as before, but it is not automatic and takes more setup, but CramFS, cloop, etc have been in use for a while

> they have fine-grained access controls
I guess the Journaled, enterprise file-systems don't count?
XFS
JSF

> they have a common language runtime
They are pushing and developing modern programming languages so that we aren't all stuck programming in C.
Take a look at Pel 6, Jython

> (I also know that most of this stuff is available on linux, but it's also kind of a pain in the ass.)
Most of it is pretty simple, mplayer or Xine are genrally default in Distributions, there are distributions _just_ for sound, and anyone look at the alcs and encryption can gereally configure them
On the other hand, I install new things really easily with Gentoo
`emerge new_cool_app`

Well, everything's compiled from source
and personally I've looked through and fixed
All of the USB core in the kernel, the ADSL driver for my modem, povray.
I've partly gone through Arson
and looked at lots of other source (including postgres)

So, I'm sure the ADSL software is spyware free the USB core looks ok too(if a bit badly documented and buggy)
and I've never found anything bad in povray.

Oh? Look at the long list of "class drivers" for USB. The class drivers available for FireWire seem much more limited.

from Linux1394: What exactly is IEEE 1394? It is a serial bus similar in principle to USB, but runs at speeds of up to 400 Mbit/s and is not centered around a PC (i.e. there may be none or multiple PCs on the same bus). It has a mode of transmission which guarantees bandwidth which makes it ideal for digital video cameras and similar devices.

from Linux-USB:The specification (version 1.0) was first released in January 1996 and the latest official version 1.1 was released in September 1998 The document is still under development and a version 2.0 was announced in 1999. The USB is strictly hierarchical and it is controlled by one host. The host uses a master / slave protocol to communicate with attached USB devices. This means that every kind of communication is initiated by the host and devices cannot establish any direct connection to other devices. This seems to be a drawback in comparison to other bus architectures but it is not because the USB was designed as a compromise of costs and performance. The master / slave protocol solves implicitly problems like collision avoidance or distributed bus arbitration. The current implementation of the USB allows 127 devices to be connected at the same time and the total communication bandwidth is limited to 12Mbit/s. Howewer use of low speed devices, management of USB "interrupts" and other overheads mean that actual throughput cannot exceed about 8.5Mbit/s under near ideal conditions, and typical performance may be around 2Mbit/s.

finally, for the speed of USB2, check out any one of numerous product descriptions such as this one:USB 2.0 runs at up to 480 Mbits/sec.

Reading and installing the patch from the pointers from here changed everything for me. Re-compiled the kernel just 2 days ago. Also generally, if you want to get the latest out of your usb in Linux, I have noticed that linux-usb.org has it first (or atleast soon).

Reading and installing the patch from the pointers from here changed everything for me. Re-compiled the kernel just 2 days ago. Also generally, if you want to get the latest out of your usb in Linux, I have noticed that linux-usb.org has it first (or atleast soon).

Oh yeah, there's now a webpage for the usbnet driver.

That basically tells how to do USB host-to-host networking over USB today. Special devices that talk to two different hosts, and switch between them. Sure, you could build switches that talk to even more, but this is where it starts ... :)

When this all works with zeroconf IP it'll be easy to set up a peer-to-peer LAN with speeds of several hundred Mbit/sec. Until then, you've got to set the net up by hand ... :)

You can read linux-usb news and reach linux-usb team at http://www.linux-usb.org

Some type of software? Don't be so pessimistic, device drivers aren't the only things we know how to write. If the manufacturers don't help, we'll reverse-engineer it and do it anyway.

Some digital still cameras have USB remote control (Minolta is one); this might be cheeper than using a webcam, depending on what equipment you have to hand. It should be easier on the batteries as the CCD/LCD display should power down after each photo.
The jPhoto Linux USB driver should do the trick, see www.linux-usb.org/devices.html, http://jphoto.sourceforge.net, or the tech. spec. pdf

Damien Sandras, the lead for the GnomeMeeting project, has snapshots rolled of the forthcoming 0.12 release of GnomeMeeting.

Ripped from Mailing List
There are a lot of new features :
* ILS rewrite (you can browse several ILS servers at the same time)
* full ILS support
* videograbber support (you can now make changes on the fly)
* gatekeeper support
* docklet support (Miguel Rodriguez)
* image zoom support
* jitter buffer delay support and other advanced codecs settings
* devices auto-detection
* bandwidth control support
* preferences reorganisation

The drivers are the problem. There will hopefully be a user added section for Camera ratings on the site soon.

On the V4L mailing list there have been a lot of discussions about which cameras are best and how to take advantage of a bttv based card to use a camera for video input. The mail list is here. And you have to be a list member to see the list archives. You might also check out which cameras are supported at http://www.linux-usb.org and match that up with something on the V4L list and/or GnomeMeeting list and archives .

Are you kidding?
I'm running 2.4.4 and my USB keyboard, mouse, printer and game controller all work great.
Have you been to www.linux-usb.org?

One fallacy that I believe has swept through the linux community (probably with some commercial distributions intentions) is that some distros will support hardware X great, another will support hardware Z really not so well.

99.9% of the code base that each distribution pulls from is *exactly* the same (if you disregard which version is put into which distribution).

I suggest finding a distro you like (*cough*Debian*cough*) and look through some online documentation. The linux USB project http://www.linux-usb.org has some information about what USB devices currently have support.

You end up on this site, and the "device overview" and "Networking" links show you this USB Networking frame.

Do they already work under Linux? I can't find anything about NIC's on http://www.linux-usb.org/

Big

Most of the medium format Styli, including the Photo 1270, (a 13x19 format CMYKcm printer), and the Stylus Colors 1520 and 3000 (both 17x22 CMYK printers) are supported well. The Epson 2000P has preliminary support only; it doesn't work well yet. The large format printers (the 5000, 7000, 7500, 9000, 9500, etc) are not supported, although the 7500 may work soon. Good luck!

Red Hat Linux 7 has the USB backport (done at linux-usb, which seemed to stabilize this summer and is now even going into mainstream 2.2)

We only support mice and keyboard, the rest of the modules are included "as is" - most seem to work, while others have problems (especially usb-storage, which to be really good would need a backport of the 2.4 SCSI layer)

As seen in the Pinstripe beta, we just took one of the available backports. Sure, we've fixed bugs in it and backported some more recent work but the credit for making this possible goes to the people at linux-usb

I believe the support for USB2 is already present in 2.4 bar the host controller driver (ehci). AFAIK there is only one of these so far which is available for $800 if you are a member of the USB-IF.

You should note that most of the work is not by RedHat. I'm not sure what exactly they have added (I've not checked if they are using their own startup files or our's).

Of course, I don't mean to knock RedHat's work -- it's great that USB support is finally working in Linux!

Why do you make it sound like Red Hat was solely responsible for bringing USB to Linux. I don't think they had much if anything to do with it actually. They just put it in their dist. You should really credit those responsible.

KidSock

Now I gotta go back and do it all again. Dagnabbit!

--
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delenda est Windoze

My GeForce, Modem, NIC, burner, CDROM and Monitor all came with their own drivers FROM THE MANUFACTURER. Are you saying M$ should have supplied those too?

Anyway you have the patches for 95 to have USB support so use 'em. If that isn't "viable" perhaps you should look at another O/S...Hmm..how about Linux? It seems to be the fav. of M$ bashing Zealots. USB for Linux

Perhaps you can purchase some common sense with the "auto +3 for bashing M$" karma. Just because a product doesn't have exactly what you want doesn't mean they are using copyright to control you. If that were the case, any s/w you pay for to get an upgrade or added feature would be immoral in your world.

--Clay

I do get a lot of reactions, but I get the idea that most people although they agree don't actually send the message......

Jeroen

I doubt Corel ported it themselves. Much more likely is that they just used the usb backport by Vojtech Pavlik:

Another useful URL:

Also, take a gander at the Linux USB page.. They list off another type of USB->Ethernet chipset with experimental support.

This chipset is found on D-Link and Linksys products.

Im excited about the USB interface...on Linux...
Take a look at the latest kernel, LOTS of USB devices are supported.

Will people STOP saying Linux does not have USB support! For the number of times I keep hearing it, I almost would start believing it, if I wasn't currently typing with my USB keyboard and using my USB HandSpring Visor docking station all the time...

Linux USB homepage

On a related note, some people just got the RIO MP3 player working with the Linux USB stack, take a look at http://rio500.sourceforge.net for more information on it.

• Web browser?

  Probably some Spyglass/Mosaic derivative. There have been a number of embedded platforms built up using that.

• USB.

  Well, the code is coming along. Take a look at the web site. Linux-USB.org

• As for the GPL, it implies that they have to offer to provide a copy of the source code to all GPLed code that they provide.

  This is probably most economically done by sticking a source code TARBALL on the CD that comes with the product.

  They don't have to redistribute the source code to Spyglass Mosaic, if that's what they use as the web browser, and so long as it runs as a separate process.

  They may have to include sources to customizations to GPLed or LGPLed libraries; this does not mandate releasing source code to applications that aren't linked to GPLed code.

  In short, if there's a 660MB CD in the box, it won't likely hurt too much if they drop a couple tarballs in that occupy 50MB of it. Alternatively, they may take the approach Tivo did, and offer to send out a CD with relevant source code for a relatively nominal cost.

I've got a Kodak DC240 Digital Camera and USB transfers work excellently with the dev kernels I've tried (2.3.29 & 2.3.40) (I don't have any other USB devices). Get gPhoto with its support for 90+ models, and you're laughing. Hava a look at linux-usb.org for the status of support for various devices.

The support in the 2.2.x kernels is very basic. You'll be better of with a backport of the 2.3.x kernel code:

Usb backport

More information:

Linux USB site

Check out www.linux-usb.org. Under supported devices it lists this mouse. I have the IntelliMouse Explorer working under USB on a debian system at home. It works amazing and I'd definately reccomend it. Alex mach64@yahoo.com