On Mon, 03 Jan 2000, James (Jim) Hatridge wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> A buddy just got a system with allot of USB stuff. He talks about using
> Linux, but says he has to have Win98 for USB. Does Linux support USB yet?
> Or what parts of USB does Linux support? BTW just what is so great about
> USB?
Some devices like keyboards and mice are pretty easy to support, some devices
like scanners and printers will work with Linux RSN. The 2.2.13 kernel
included with SuSE 6.3 has some USB and Firewire support, but this should be
considered experimental, and used at your own risk.
USB is great becuase it's fast, scalable, hot-swapable, and inexpensive. Fast
meaning that a two-machine peer-to-peer USB network can transfer data at speeds
comparable to 10Base-2 (fine for basic file transfers or dialup internet
access), USB printing takes less CPU and is considerably faster than an lp
interface, and it allows serial devices that communicate at over 115k/sec
(current 164550A's cap at 115k). Scalable meaning that dozens of devices
(iirc, 127) may *theoretically* be attached to a single root hub; I wouldn't
recommend trying this because of saturation ;). Inexpensive meaning that that
a USB scanner is about the same price as a parallel one (sometimes cheaper) and
almost as fast as SCSI (for that device, anyway ;).
Imagine for a second, a handheld appliance (not unlike a PalmPilot or WinCE
device). It has a touchpad, a stylus, and a single USB port. At any given time
you can connect a full keyboard, a printer, a fast modem, or a connection to a
desktop PC, and then immediately (no reset or reboot) disconnect or reconnect
the devices for travel. Is this attractive? :)
--
-=|JP|=-
Jon Pennington | Atipa Linux Solutions -o)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.atipa.com /\\
Kansas City, MO, USA | 816-241-2641 _\_V
