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USB 2.0 For Linux
SilentTone writes: "PCWorld is reporting that USB 2.0 or high speed USB will be hitting Linux first half 2002. Intel is already providing space on its Pentium 4 motherboard for the USB 2.0 controller. With a transfer rate of 480Mbps (more than firewire's 400Mbps) it seems promising." Update: 09/04 23:02 PM GMT by H : So, somewhere between my preview and going live, I seem to have "lost" the link - if you find it, please post below. I'm looking - in the meantime, this is a good Linux and USB tutorial, and Blue Cat Linux is supporting USB 2.0. HA! Found it - story updated.
Apple will probably beat major pc manufacturers to include it as a standard option on all their systems as well. Just like they did with USB, Firewire, and even Gigabit ethernet. Too bad their hardware is so expensive.
Remember that you are unique, just like everybody else.
400mbps.
400 millibaud!!! Damn that's slow!
will Linux driver developers reverse engineer if there are no Microsoft Windows USB2.0 drivers?
Smart one: now all they need to do is ban your entire proxy list as well.
Remember that you are unique, just like everybody else.
At any rate, Linux support for these next-generation devices is still important; better for it to come sooner (before it's popular) than later (at which point people wonder why Linux is lagging behind).
David E. Weekly
Code / Think / Teach / Learn
h4x0r for
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Thank god someone else can't find it, I thought I was going crazy. Has anyone found it yet, or did some mysterious poster from the future post this before all the other kharma whores even had a chance?
Help find a cure for cancer!
Sounds like a good step if USB2.0 doesn't cost too much.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
After reading the comments so far, I figured that there should be something on topic, SO...
The one problem with USB 2.0 is that it needs a computer to function. That makes it useless for many consumer uses.
Firewire does not need a computer in the loop. Each device is intelligent enough to talk to other devices in and of itself.
While USB 2.0 does not market itself for those purposes, it does market itself for purposes that firewire has worked fine for, for the last few years. Purposes like video transfer, high-speed data connection, etc. Fire wire is cheep enough these days that interface boards are being bundled along with low-end video editing software.
If more motherboards would provide it onboard, there would be NO need for USB 2.0, except in the few situations where a hub topology was really needed.
James Ray Kenney
James Ray Kenney mailto:jrkenney@swbell.net
aren't newer and fully backward-compatible firewire interfaces going to start showing up soon that run much faster than the original ones?
does USB 2.0 have any advantages over firewire other than that you're paying licensing fees to Intel and not Apple? (and isn't it free to conform to the firewire spec as long as you call it "IEEE 1394" or whatever instead of "firewire"?) Is there any reason for this USB2 standard to exist other than ensuring that nothing that involves an Apple patent becomes industry standard?
Everyone, sing after me:
Let's slap together a bunch of features onto a product never intended to provide them!
Let's win this battle on the marketing field rather than the technical merits!
Let's leverage our existing monopolies to create new ones!
What's the "SB" in USB stand for? Serial Bus? No! Super Bandwidth!
Microsoft isn't going with USB 2.0; that alone should give pause. And what's the roadmap for the future? A present negligible superiority is all well and good for the moment, but how much can they expect to increase it as IEEE 1394 plods ahead? Not terribly much.
*Sigh*
It's just waiting for the rubber stamp. Initial hardware is almost ready to go.
I really don't need my keyboard running at 480mbps, so USB2 doesn't really appeal to me.
800mbps of firewire, now THAT is nice...
It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Oh...before the grammar Nazi comes along...I meant to say "Now our USB peripherals will be unsupported in Linux much more quickly than they were in USB v1.1!"
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Mind you I'm unable to quote whatever article that Hemos is referring to as there is no link to the story and I've searched the PCWorld website and found nothing about Linux and USB 2.0, but just going off of the quote it says that Linux won't have support until the first half of 2002 while this story quotes that Microsoft already has beta drivers and final WinXP drivers will be available by either the end of this year or the first part of next.
Sure there was no linked article, but at least read the freaking POST before you go trumpeting Linux beating M$.
you wouldn't like it if I agreed with you, because the input devices would knock out FireIeee1394LinkWire out of the running.
Listen folks... anyone who attended WinHEC in Anaheim this year couldn't have missed the writing on the wall. USB is low speed keyboard/mice/joystick/ticker-tape stuff. High bandwidth video/storage/networking is Firewire.
And we're all grown up enough to realize that Windows (and WinHEC) drive the volumes that hardware manufacturers look at to determine what to make.
Put a fork in USB 2.0... it's toast.
--Rob
Firewire can also be used for data transfer without a computer (digital camcorder to vcr, as an example). Since Intel's behind USB and they're interested in selling boxes, you need a computer in every usb chain.
Besides, the next generation of firewire will be ready soon, doubling the transfer rate to 800 mbps.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
After a few minutes of searching I think I finally figured out exactly where PCWorld has "reported" that Linux will have USB 2.0 drivers in first half of 2002. It is located in this story .
Here is the information they give:
"But don't count USB 2.0 out. Microsoft has announced that it will offer downloadable USB 2.0 drivers for Windows 2000 and for the upcoming Windows XP operating system. Linux support for USB 2.0 should come in the first half of 2002.
Silicon behemoth Intel currently provides space for a USB 2.0 controller chip on its Pentium 4 motherboards, and Gateway has announced that it will put the chips in some PCs beginning this fall. Intel and Acer Labs plan to put USB 2.0 into at least some chip sets by mid-2002; Via Technologies, on the other hand, will add IEEE 1394 support to its chip sets before turning to USB 2.0. AMD says it will support USB 2.0, but not how or when."
Sounds like speculation to me on the Linux drivers. Do any Linux USB devs have any actual info about this?
Q.
Will someone please hurry up and mod this freak a troll please, I'm all out of mod points! I'm very sick and tired of hearing BSD zealots bash linux.
I have nothing against BSD. As a matter of fact I LOVE BSD. I have deployed all the major BSD variants (Free, NET and Open) and their merits are undisputable. But for crying out loud this flaming is FUCKING ANNOYING!
And the funny thing is that what you guys accuse Linux users of you are guilty of yourself! I'm thinking in particular of the 1337 h4x0r attitude. While a number of Linux lusers have been guilty of this in the past I'm seeing more and more BSD lusers doing the same thing. By bashing Linux! "I'm so 1337 u 1inUx users 5ucK! Switch to BSD! It's awesome. It doesn't suck like linux!"
So please shut up and stop being hypocrits. BSD is great but so is Linux. Get over it! No one wants to hear your whining.
Now someone please mod this post as offtopic.
P.S Oh and for the record. Regarding my first paragraph: I'm also sick of hearing Linux users bash MS.
--
Garett
If you were to read the headline, Linux gets this in Q1 2002. WinXP is gold *now*, meaning that it'll be out before then. Beyond that, I'm running 2.2.18 right now, so yeah, that too will require a separate download.
If you're gonna bash MS, do it with proper logic.
(I'm sure this'll win me a modding-down)
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
USB2 is FINNALY catching up to IEEE 1394 (firewire, iLink, whatever) in terms of speed. Have you heard of 1394b? Coming to devices near you starting at 800mbps, ramping up to over 3.2gbps by 2003.
Ain't technology grand?
It predicts firewire and usb will coexist, with firewire probably remaining dominant in audio/video.
The point-to-point aspect of firewire seems like a huge advantage for these applications, and it will be interesting to see if the predicted speed bumps of firewire 2 and 3 really are double and triple current speeds, as expected (and way faster than USB 2).
NetBSD may have been 1st. I don't track NetBSD. I do know wihin 2 weeks of FreeBSD's announcement, Appple supported USB....and Linux lagged in this case.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
USB is a low cost I/O interface that relys on the cpu. Intel wanted a standard that was cheap and would promote cpu sales. As devices are added processing goes up and available cycles goes down. Other I/O interfaces like scsi utilize a seperate processor to allow the cpu to perform more important tasks.
I like usb, its fairly fast and cheap but intel has its own reasons for pushing the standard.
We have the best government that money can buy.
First: It's Cool that linux has support for a buzzword before windoze.
;-)
That being said, usb2 is just Intel wishing they had gotten on the firewire bandwagon early on. It's on 80mbps faster than FireWire, and doesn't have any serious advantages. FireWire is here for a while, and when it is replaced it will be by something a lot faster than usb2.
But thats just my opinion, I could be wrong.
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
His post was the troll, not mine. Explanation:
My post offered a honest opinion (in a purposefully-loud tone) and gave facts and explanations to back it up.
All he did was bash Linux. He mentioned how BSD had USB before Linux in an attempt to make linux look inferior. Then he offered a rude joke that bashed MS and Linux and made BSD come out favourable. What he essentially did was offered an opposed opinion with nothing to back it up in an attempt to aggravate his "target".
IMHO his post was troll-like. Mine was rude and flameful, but it was well though-out, had a point and was not meant to offend anyone. It was meant to simply to point out how annoyed I was at his post.
--
Garett
I never said that you were wrong. I don't believe that you were wrong. Where did you get that impression from?
Did you even read my post?
--
Garett
Hey Troll whiner.....where is your links to DISPROVE MY STATEMENT that FreeBSD had USB support before Apple and BOTH had it before Linux? Oh, wait, you have no facts....just linux hype and got a moderator to back it up.
(and for the record, NetBSD had it Before FreeBSD)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
2. The moment you put a mouse (or anyother low speed device) on that USB 2.0 port you loose the 480MB/sec max throughput.
3. Microsoft supports Firewire instead of USB 2
4. Firewire is looking to move to 800MB/sec in the near future.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Will someone explain to me why anyone should be excited about USB 2.0 when we already have Firewire? Look how long it's taken to get decent support for Firewire. Let's get widespread Firewire first for christ's sake.
Gosh I hope so! I want to visit the USB 2.0 star on Hollywood's "walk of fame"! Maybe it could replace one of the older, less visited dedications, like Ida Lupino or Jack Lord...
Jeremiah
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Does it really matter weather Linux supports USB 2.0 before manufacturer X?
Do we really need to act like a bunch of kids arguing back and forth about our toy being better than someone else's?
-
Linux gets USB2 support? Great.
-
Linux isn't going to be behind the curve on this new technology? Excellent.
But seriously people, do you seriously feel that it's only possible for Linux to be considered a viable operating system if we parade our wins?Microsoft will support USB 2.0 when the situation demands it.
Hey, If you want to do an item by item comparason between operating systems, and are willing to admit failures as well as success: go for it.
I applaud Linux developers for supporting USB2 before certain other companies.
There are two things to remember about USB2 as compared to Firewire though...
1. 480Mbits/sec is only a possible maximum. Ultimately your getting that speed depends largely on the topology that is employed.
2. Firewire packets have a time code. USB2 packets do not. That makes USB2 inappropriate for use as a dependable high-quality media conduit.
So what you are saying is you are a linux bigot, you whine when someone posts a FACT that FreeBSD had usb support before Linux.
What is amazing is that moderators are such mindless sheep to follow your whining. March off the cliff Linux Lemmings! Dance to the puppet master spencley-sales!!!!
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
I think maybe he means http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,60124,00 .asp.
I don't see FireWire getting replaced by USB 2.0 any time soon, if ever. What's the point? USB 2.0 is not THAT much faster to warrant retooling.
It will speed up scanners, cheap webcams and other such things though. As for your keyboard, well, if you can type THAT fast... Upgrade!
Scince noone else seems to be posting facts, I will.
USB2 is backward compatible to USB1. Firewire isnt.
Firewire 2 is not 800Mbps, it's 3.2Gbps.
So, for the most part, USB2 will takeover the low-end high-band market, and Firewire2 will replace gigabit ethernet, and possibly SCSI.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Now if Intel wasn't pushing USB 2.0 as a replacement for FireWire, I would be all for it. I think it would be great if USB 2.0 replaced USB 1.1. Having digital still cameras with a 480MB connection will make downloading all those images really fast. However, billing USB 2.0 as a replacement for FireWire is just insane. There are already millions of camcorders with built in FireWire, and millions of PCs are shipping with it. FireWire has won the war and it hasn't even started.
Mr. Spleen
The theoretical transfer rate of USB is misleading. Overall, USB remains an inferior technology to USB for applications requiring high bandwidth with deterministic, isochronous transmission. This article provides a good explanation of some of the issues involved. In one of the projects I have been leading, we have been involved in developing the Linux IP over 1394 drivers, and have obtained over 150 Mb/s point-to-point bandwidth using IEEE 1394 asynchronous mode, with room for left for further optimization . The increased function call overhead of USB makes even this modest performance level unlikely.
We are saddled with this inferior technological solution due to the recalcitrance and greed of Intel, who, as usual, are elevating their hidden agenda borne of backroom deals and "strategic partnerships" above the interests of their customers.
Just as the Evolution Theory was about to be proven to the scientific community once and for all, Slashdot Editor Hemos mis-places the Missing Link. Conspiracy theorists believe this is the result of an international coverup funded by religious organizations in an effort to keep the Evolution Theory down.
In related news, Linux is rumored to support the new high-speed USB 2.0, which should begin to appear in kernel version 2.6, due out by the end of 2044.
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
I know that from a licensing standpoint USB is cheaper than Firewire, but
Seeing that USB is reliant on a processor, and that it seems to be more simple . . . is USB also cheaper, physically, to use/make?
In other words, is this going to be IDE versus Scuzzy all over again?
I worked for a major toy company that was basically subsidized by Intel to put a USB port on every one of our products. Additionally, we were encouraged to bundle CPU intensive software in order to drive computer upgrades.
We all knew that USB was a poor choice for anything but momentary inputs, but we were pumping video, sound, all sorts of crap through the lines, and watching the signals degrade and the software sputter to a halt. This was USB-1, of course, but IMO, regardless of the bandwidth, it's a poor choice for the sort of tasks FireWire is ideal for, precisely because it's CPU dependent.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
yeah great, we will have support for USB 2.0 but don't we have to be able to have support for each device?
Linux supports USB just fine it is the individual drivers for the devices that we are lacking. There are plenty of people putting in some hardcore work into making things work w/Linux but for the most part I see a lot of red X's next to just about every device (including every USB device I have ever had)
I am glad to see that Intel is going to push for Linux support but we need to have the drivers written too!
I bought in January of '97 a Tyan Tomcat motherboard with a P75 chip, it had a USB port. The spec changed and USB was busted, so they relabeled the parts (and replaced the motherboards if you complained enought).
The problem wasn't motherboards. By mid-97 all machines had the ports. Every machine my high school picked up that year (first half of 97) were P133s-P166s and had USB ports. These were Dell computers with vanilla mobos.
The problem was originally software support, MS didn't support USB until Win98, the Win95 support was busted. Additionally, the market for mice and keyboards died around then. The computers shipped with them AND the market was only supporting $20 replacements, not the highend ones that were popular through 96 and early 97.
Without software support, there was no interest in the hardware. People were pushing parallel port solutions instead. The parallel port scanners, zip drives, etc., dominated the low-end, and SCSI still ruled the high end.
Apple made USB a reality. They used it to replace ADP when they needed something to replace the external SCSI-1 port they used for expansion forever. With their move to IDE hard drives, the SCSI port was rediculous.
Anyone selling addons for Apple built them as USB devices, including mice and keyboards. As the standard was the same, there was no reason to not write Win98 drivers and open up the PC market.
Apple's ability to make something a standard on a segment of the industry is powerful. While Dell and Compaq (soon to be HP) ship lots of machines, nobody is interested in a Dell-only or Compaq-only option on the consumer level. The PC world is commodity only now, so only MS/Intel can add things to the standard. There is no room for vendors to improve the experience, since we scream and yell that it is propriatary.
USB 2.0 is a bad hack. If you don't use a USB 2.0 hub, then any USB 1 device (which keyboards, mice, scanners, etc., should always remain) drops the whole thing to USB 1. In addition, the bus is split up, so the 480 MB theoretical is a real joke. The bus uses time slices, not bandwidth slices. So when the keyboard and mouse grab their fractions of a second, they take bandwidth that could go to the video camera.
Furthermore, Firewire 2.0 brings Firewire up to 800 MB, and its reality is much closer to the theory.
OTOH, I agree that it is good for Linux to support it. As Linux distributions/kernels in the wild don't get upgraded as often, having the support now means that in 2 years, everyone will have it. Better to have the software beat the hardware.
Adding support in Windows is more user-painless (insert CD, press setup, watch this application you got from a no-name vendor to save $3 overrights basic operating system files...) then Linux, so it is good to see Linux beat the curve.
Alex
I'd be happy to call you....Oh, wait you are an AC, and most /. users don't hand out their number.
So, how am I supposed to call you?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
OK OK so there are no real devices at that data rate yet, but 1394b supports 800Mbps, 1.6Gbps and 3.6Gbps. The standard is inplace and you can expect devices rather soon at 800 and 1.6Gbps with just around the corner.
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
There is an EHCI driver and USB 2.0 core patches available right now for Linux.
The current plan is to merge them into the 2.5 kernel, and perhaps backport into the 2.4 kernel once it is deemed stable.
The problem holding back USB 2.0 under Linux is device availability. We've had a couple of vendors donate some USB 2.0 Host Controllers but only 1 device. There are a couple of devices available for purchase now and they work with the aforementioned patches.
The story on pcworld.com is speculation. We have USB 2.0 support, but it's not finished and it will only be finished when we have devices to test against.
Do you know why EIDE is still around and popular today? Because it's cheap. EIDE is simpler than SCSI.
Do you know why USB will still stay around? Because implenting USB hardware is much easier and cheaper than Firewire.
I don't think either will die.
While the ATA interface currently maxes out at 133 megabytes per second, serial ATA will debut at about 150 MBps and is expected to quadruple to 600 MBps in the next few years.
Right... they said the same thing about RDRAM speed, DVD capacity and countless other technologies. The only computer part that reliable gets that much faster is the CPU. Even the good old mainstay of increasing ATA harddrive capacities has it a brick wall for increasing capacity in the past year.
My experience with Firewire is that it works. No excuses. No problems with confusing the operating system, unlike some situations with USB.
Bush's education improvements were
Actually, SCSI is slower than the current IDE unless used in a multiuser system.
Bush's education improvements were
One intersting thing to note is that Apple is probably the only computer company offering USB mice and keyboards standard. Sure things are starting to change, but too many manufacturers are still pushing the PS/2 port !?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The only catch will be that most motherboard manufacturers will be making 800Mbps standard and forcing you to buy 3.6Gbps cards separatly if you really need that speed.
BTW isn't the 3.6Gbps rate only available via optical connections?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Umm... let's look at that list:
Compaq: in the ditch
HP: halfway into the ditch (with Compaq now pulling)
Lucent: the water in the bottom of the ditch
NEC: what do they actually make again?
Philips: Anything that sells their components. (i.e. Philips had near 0 marketshare in the sound card chip business. Change the target to "USB speakers" and now Phillips can leverage their chip making expertise (see I2C designs) to equal the footing with entrenched sound card competitors)
--Rob
Microsoft is planning on supporting USB 2.0 under Windows XP. It's just that drivers were not ready in time for the RTM version.
This link talks about their support for USB 2.0:
http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/usb/
Um, doesn't sound like they redesigned anything to me. Sounds like they left their USB1.1 controller alone that they know works and has worked for years, and designed from scratch their USB2 controller. That makes perfect sense to me. I don't understand your logic. Intel puts in a USB2 controller, and that says 1394 goes away? That don't jive...
480mbps bandwidth for my USB2 Mouse! (-;
At least in beta form, they've drivers available for WinXP already. It's just that USB 2.0 wasn't ready for their feature complete date for WinXP RTM.
/. commentary. The PCWorld article I read doesn't mention Linux at all. When they say having drivers available for Linux, do they mean production stable, or beta?
I'm puzzled by the
With a transfer rate of 480mbps (more than firewire's 400mbps) it seems promising
Let me guess: you also buy processors based soley on the megahertz rating. If you seriously believe that the "480mb/s" rating of USB 2.0 (chosen only because it appears on paper to be faster than FireWire), then I have a bridge to sell you.
USB was meant to be a replacement for serial ports; for low-speed devices that could tolerate high-latencies, like keyboards and mice. It was never meant for devices like digital camcoders; that's FireWire's specialty. USB 2.0 is a hack. A wide adoption of USB 2.0 over FireWire would be a very bad thing. Thankfully FireWire 2.0 will reach very close to real and sustainable speeds of 800mb/s, cleanly beating even the highly exaggerated speeds of USB 2.0.
People that buy on "specs" really piss me off. Learn something about the underlying technology before you go making rampant generalizations.
- j
going to have to pull USB's butt out of the fire AGAIN?
"The U.S. Constitution - not perfect, but its better than what we have now"
Since the difference between Firewire and USB2 is not only, unlike SCSI vs. EIDE, performance, but also real functionality that shall be very visible to end-users.
Whereas non-demanding end-users didn't have a real reason to prefer SCSI over EIDE (on the contrary, SCSI was a bit more complicated to set up) they do have a reason to prefer Firewire: It can function without a computer directly between electronic consumer devices. This makes USB2 more complex and less functional even in the eyes of simple end-users.
Therefore I believe that in this case, not even Intels marketing and pushing to make a computer indispensible for working with video etc. will succeed in letting the inferior solution prevail.
If you look at the low-level traffic on the bus USB is really a polling architecture. But from the host processor's point of view USB is interrupt-driven since the USB host controller does the polling itself and interrupt the host only if it needs special attention. In reality, a well-written USB driver puts a very light load on the host. Microsoft's USB drivers are not so well-written. The audio drivers are particularly aweful. This is NOT a limitation of the USB standard.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Who cares anyway USB2 sucks. Firewire /IEE1394 rules. But the worst will probably win like with SCSI.
I don't know why we need USB2 as IEE1394 can do the same. (What i understood USB2 is based on IDE protocol and IEE1394 is more like the SCSI protocol?)
Regards,
Joop.
Other I/O interfaces like scsi utilize a seperate processor to allow the cpu to perform more important tasks.
The USB host controller is about as smart as many SCSI controllers. It uses bus-mastering DMA based on control structures prepared in memory by the CPU and intepreted by the USB host controller. It puts a very light load on the CPU. What wastes CPU cycles is the type of devices that people build - USB WinModems that rely on the CPU for the modulation, or simple, DAC-only USB audio devices that use the CPU for all sample rate conversion, mixing, software synthesis etc.
True, Intel has been pushing to move more and more of the value in a PC from the peripherals to the motherboard where it can monopolize it. In order to do that they needed an EFFICIENT serial I/O bus. USB is not wasteful in itself.
The fact that USB is a low-cost interface makes it possible to build such devices that use (abuse?) the CPU power. The cost savings of a WinModem compared to a DSP-based modem, for example, would not have such a big effect on the price tag if the interface were much more expensive.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Hey nillnuts, he was referring to the 'm' for milli; as opposed to the M for mega. Pinhead.
:wq
Why the hell don't we just use GigE? It's here now. It works. It can be networked. It's supported by all OS's. It's backward compatible with 10 and 100 Mb devices.
:wq
Hi,
Get yourself a recent distribution and install it. No further work is necessary, both my optical mice and digital camera work great.
Cheers,
Joseph Tan
The problem with USB in general that I can see is that the USB design does not have the idea of "standard types".
Consider SCSI: any SCSI hard disk ID's itself as a SCSI mass storage device, any SCSI CDROM ID's itself as a CDROM, any SCSI CDR as a CDR (with the new standards....), etc. I don't have to have a special driver to connect my Quantum Fireball to my SCSI bus.
Now look at USB: I have a USB mass storage device (the docking bay for my NEO-35), a SCSI over USB based scanner, and a USB serial port. Do any of those things have drivers under Linux? Only the serial port. Why? Because there is no standard for USB to SCSI adapters, no standard for USB mass storage devices, no standards IN GENERAL.
The USB design committee basically said "Here's how you read a unique ID from the device. From there, you look in C:\Windows\System, A:; and D: for your DLL". In other words, they basically did half the job of coming up with a standard, taking the "Yer gonna use the Winders Drivers, right?" attitude.
Why don't they establish some standards for devices: Any USB mass storage adaptor must provide these commands, any USB CDR must provide these commands, any USB scanner must provide these commands, any USB to SCSI bridge must provide these commands, etc.
Also, on the subject of the USB HID (human interface device): this is nothing but a big MGI (mogolian group intercourse) - an HID is a thing that does stuff. That's about the extent of the USB spec. How about specifying that an HID must provide a descriptor list in a well defined format (XML, anyone?) that defines what inputs and outputs the device has?
Sorry, but until the various standards committees accept that "Supply a GUID, and the rest is up to Windows" is not enough, things like USB, Firewire, Bluetooth, etc. will not be supportable by anything other than Windows.
As an embedded systems developer, I am disgusted by having to either waste my time writing a million drivers for the things people want to hang off my box, or having to embed Windows.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The USB 2.0 PC cards may have been on the shelves, but they did not come with drivers. Only a couple manufacturers are releasing drivers now, and those arrived just a few weeks ago. It's kinda hard to develop, debug & release a device when the software isn't there to let them talk.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
My comment was based on a report I read and my own experimentation. It applies only to identical hard drives, of course.
The report said that many SCSI hard drives are IDE internally, and the IDE is translated to SCSI. So, in those cases, SCSI must be slower.
Several years ago, I criticised Adaptec for implying that SCSI was faster. Almost immediately they changed the language on their site. So they apparently agree.
Note that the theoretical transfer speed of ATA 100 is a lie. No devices currently available can sustain speeds like that.
Conceivably there are SCSI devices that are not available in IDE versions that are faster. However, my understanding is that any speed increase in a single-user system is due only to the hardware being faster.
The storage write and retrieval speed of modern computers is limited by the fact that hard drives are mechanical devices that turn very slowly in comparison to the speed of the CPU.
Note that my comment only applies to a SINGLE-USER system. Such systems only have one process active at a time, in almost all cases. This is because the user turns his or her attention from one process to another, and the other processes are essentially idle. If there were more than one process running on a single-user computer, and both processes were competing heavily for hard drive access, SCSI might be faster.
The conclusion is that SCSI is useful only for busy servers.
Bush's education improvements were
My understanding is that, yes, it could. However, such rare events make no detectable difference over several hours of use.
Both the cache in the hard drive and the cache in the operating system are very efficient. My understanding is that, in most cases, it is the memory cache associated with the operating system that would supply the data in cases where it was recognized that further data would probably be needed.
The software that runs both caches would recognize that more data was needed, and the OS cache would read the data from the hard drive cache as the data became available during the slow turning of the disk. The only case where a hard drive cache would provide burst information would be those where the software in the hard drive cache predicted the user's needs better than did the software in the OS cache. Since OS caches are so important to OS benchmark results, they are very well-designed. It is unlikely that a hard drive cache would guess better.
The main purpose of a hard drive cache is to read an entire track into memory.
Bush's education improvements were
I started buying USB motherboards when it looked like USB was going to be the Next Great Thing, but it fizzled. I STILL don't have a USB mouse, keyboard, CDROM, or whatever.
But, I do have FireWire devices, and their apparent bandwidth doesn't seem to bog down the I/O subsystem of my motherboard.
USB 2.0? No thanks, I will stick with 1394.
We don't get paid to write these comments, so not as much work is put into providing references. In response to my complaint, Adaptec changed the language on their web site, so that the web site did not make claims that SCSI was faster. There is a huge hardware book with a black cover sold in big technical bookstores that explains that most SCSI drives are slower than the equivalent IDE. I don't remember the name. I have experimented with SCSI myself, with an Adaptec 2940 UW SCSI adapter (not the latest). I did not see a performance increase under use that I would consider normal for my customers and myself.
My understanding is that the latest IDE is also able to cache commands.
"SCSI yeilds a signifigant performance increase (particularly since the cost of high speed CPUs and memory have dropped so drastically, thus making the hard drive all the more of a performance bottleneck.)
Note that this sentence is illogical. If the CPU is fast, what is saved by having a lighter CPU load using SCSI?
It is unfortunate that when there is a disagreement or misunderstanding, Slashdot readers often make hostile remarks, such as you did above in calling me "stupid".
Most users would not see a difference it they had SCSI. Most users don't try to run two processes that both do hard drive access at the same time. So, my comment is very helpful, because it saves readers from buying SCSI and wasting money.
People who have very heavy usage know who they are and are unlikely to be led astray by my comments.
Bush's education improvements were