On Thu, 2 May 2002, Juan Jose Natera Abreu wrote:

> First of all, please excuse my ignorance on the subject but the mailling 
> list archives dont have a search feature.

Just search in google. Include linux-usb-devel in the search term.

> Now, what kind of facilities exist for user space applications to access 
> USB devices? and why are they better than kernel drivers?

This was discussed several times on this list.

search for libusb and usbdevfs

Advantages are:

1. kernel gets smaller  think maintainance
2. installation of user space drivers is much easier - for example
   rpm/deb pakcages with binaries should work with many kernel
   versions - no need to compile or get one for each kernel version.
   This is a big advantage in terms of 'average Joe' simplicity.
3. drivers in user space can be developped separately from the kernel
   think modularization
4. If driver screws something up - nothing bad happens to the system
   think stability
5. more that I do not remember

IMHO all devices which do not interact on low level with the
kernel like mp3-players, scanners, digital cameras (unless they conform to
USB-storage class) should be moved to user space. Only devices which
interact with the kernel a lot like network devices should stay.

I got Nomad II mp3 player and I love its user space driver: nomadii
(sourceforge).

I do not have to care about my kernel version any more. I simply
go to sourceforge, download .rpm and rpm -Uhv  it.
So simple, so convenient.

BR,

Jacek




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