Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

USB 2.0 For Linux

Posted by Hemos on from the plug-and-play-away dept.

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.

8 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. USB 2.0 is already here... by dew · · Score: 4, Informative
    At Fry's Electronics here in Silicon Valley, low-cost USB 2.0 PCI controllers have been on the shelves for well over a month now. Funny thing is, I haven't seen any devices on the shelves that could speak 2.0. Maybe I just didn't happen to see them, but it seems that we might run into the kind of time-delay catch-22's that plagued the original USB: it wasn't important to get a USB board or have USB-support because there weren't any peripherals, and there wasn't any impetus to manufacture USB peripherals, since the install base of computers with USB controllers was small. So USB took quite some time to actually achieve widespread penetration. The same fate may befall 2.0; it may be at least a year before 2.0 is truly compelling. In the interim, Firewire will do quite well. (It's more widespread and is also a more interesting, peered protocol with QOS-like features.)

    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

  2. The problem with USB 2.0 by James+Ray+Kenney · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  3. Re:once again by fobbman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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$.

  4. Not much of a story by Quikah · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  5. your logic boggles... by levl289 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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)

  6. USB 2.0 problems by Auckerman · · Score: 4, Interesting
    1. Firewire is ALREADY ubquitious and plans to move it to your TV already in place.


    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
  7. I had a USB 1.0 Mobo in 97 by alexhmit01 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  8. USB 2.0 transfer rates by iso · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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