I believe this has been discussed at some point, but there is a
file-storage module that emulates a mass storage device:
http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget/file_storage.html
I don't see it included in the preview ASU package, but it should be
trivial to build separately.
The issue (that I see, anyway) is that it requires exclusive access to
the drive that it uses for the storage. I think the cleanest way to
handle that would be to format a partition on the SD card with a
suitable filesystem (Fat32). This would then be normally be mounted on
the Neo, and used for storing media files and extra user data. When you
want to connect to the PC to transfer songs or whatever, you run a
utility that unmounts the drive from the linux side, switches off the
USB ethernet gadget and switches on the file-storage gadget, with this
device as its target. Then you can plug it into a PC and do whatever,
and when you are done you simply use the utility to switch back to the
previous configuration.
The downside to this method is that you wouldn't get access to the root
filesystem, and Neo applications woudn't have access to the drive while
it was being shared (so you couldn't play songs while you were
downloading them). Also, it would probably be tricky to share PIM data
this way, because you wouldn't want to turn off the dialer program :-D.
Cheers,
Matt
Bobby Martin wrote:
I'm sure it's *possible* to make the neo behave like a mass
storage device, and I would love to have
software that does it so I can have some kind of communication
with Windows machines that I don't
have permission to install drivers & internet bridges on. As
far as I know that software doesn't exist today.
Two ways to accomplish this:
1. use gadget_storage on the neo/freerunner
2. use usb-networking + samba on the neo/freerunner
My vote goes for option #2, since this also allows us to continue
to support ssh'ing to the phone, etc.
;
--
Jay Vaughan
My issue is that I want to be able to connect my neo to just about any
Windows PC and at least transfer
files. Connecting to the neo via usb from a Windows machine requires
installing a driver on the Windows
PC and setting up a network bridge on the Windows PC. These are
things I'm often unable to do. (E.g.
at work, or especially on someone else's machine at work.)
Bluetooth is nice, but it's also true that many PCs don't have
bluetooth. To me, the ideal solution would
be to have an app on the neo that makes it pretend to be a mass
storage device over USB, so standard
USB connectors on almost any USB host (Mac, Windows PC, Linux PC,
maybe some cameras, etc.)
would recognize the neo as a source and destination for files. We
should be able to configure which
directories are exposed through the USB mass storage interface, and
also perhaps configure how
much storage is reserved (so you don't fill up your rootfs).
Does such a USB mass storage interface simulation program exist out
there as open source
somewhere, waiting to be ported?
Bobby
--
If it doesn't make you smile, you're doing something wrong.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Openmoko community mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
_______________________________________________
Openmoko community mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
