Hi all you crazy Linux USB hackers! Has anyone created a patch to allow one to disable a device on the USB bus? It sure would be nice to be able to plug all of my USB storage devices into my Linux box without having linux actually claim them for use.
Example: my new iPod video can only charge via a USB connection. So, if the battery is low, I plug it in and it charges. BUT when it gets plugged in, Linux detects it as a USB storage device and sends whatever startup messages it needs to talk with the iPod as a storage device. Once it does this, the iPod disables the user interface and enters disk mode, where I can not use it. So, I can not use it while charging on the laptop. Example: With VMWare, you can only use USB storage devices in a Windows VM if they are not first claimed by the Linux USB storage driver. But, of course, the Linux USB storage driver claims every device that gets plugged in. So, why not just disable the USB storage driver? Well, more than half of my VMs are stored on an external USB2 disk because my laptop's internal disk is too small. So, my Windows VM (or any other VM for that matter) can not ever use a USB storage device or any other USB device controlled by Linux without disabling ALL devices of whatever class the driver for the device contrlos - i.e. all USB storage for example. It just seems silly that there is no control in the USB system (that I have seen) for disabling devices from the command line. I'm not a real kernel hacker having only ventured there in tiny skirmishes with the code, but Linux is supposed to be all about giving the user back control of his/her system, and not taking away the control like Windows or Mac Classic try to do. If that is the philosophy, then the drivers should offer more control as well - including the control to not control given devices and just ignore them, at a whim. I guess in this way Windows wins - in Windows I can right-click a device in the device manager and 'disable' it from the drop down menu on the first properties page. I'm not knocking the work the USB development team has done, BTW. USB devices work great in Linux and it is nice that in most respects they work the way we expect them too. I'm just proposing the next step... -Nick Floersch -- Its been so long, and the groove in my heart is nearly gone, Oh my head's in the clouds, but I'm landing on my feet. - JK www.falderal.net ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid0944&bid$1720&dat1642 _______________________________________________ linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net To unsubscribe, use the last form field at: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-usb-devel
