> > And it's not useful to criticise usb for having an
> > API that firewire is missing ... again, that's less
> > helpful than doing it the other way around.
>
> Firewire has another API to do that.
> What I am critical of is creating several APIs to do the same thing.
I see one API to expose USB information ... what's the problem? :)
> > > Secondly going through the device node is easier
> >
> > The usbdevfs nodes ARE device nodes! Your
>
> Yes and no. They lack permissions.
Odd how "chmod" works on them then then, and "chown".
> Usbdevfs more or less forces you to use all the hotplugging support
> infrastructure.
Not on my planet it doesn't! They're independent of each
other, by design. Orthogonal problems and solutions. You
can use hotplugging without usbdevfs, and vice versa.
> > (new) scenario was basically teaching specialized
> > device drivers about things usbdevfs already knows.
> > That means more specialized code in the kernel...
>
> No, the character/block layer should know about that ioctl.
To expose bus-specific metadata? (Trying to get you to
more fully describe what you're proposing ...)
> It's reducing the amount of specialised code.
> The ordinary device driver would just have "usb_generic_type_reporting" in
> its device structure.
I've actually wondered why more bus subsystems don't have
such utility functions ... so char/block style device drivers
(there are significant other kinds :) wouldn't normally just
delegate unrecognized calls to bus-specific routines.
> > > With the current model I can do 'chmod 660 /dev/usbscanner0'
> > > and the issue is settled. You can't beat that for simplicity ;-)
> >
> > The simplicity comes from having one device, not N.
> > Given USB, I'd call that oversimplification.
>
> It may or may not be oversimplification.
> There are a lot of very simple systems out there, that have just one scanner
> or printer permanently attached via USB. IMHO there is no sense to let them
> install the full hotplugging support and configure it.
What do you mean, "let them"? You can't prevent that ... :)
There's a discussion to be had about ease of use. Some
folk want to hack configuration bits themselves; most don't,
and that's where I see the requirement for hotplugging. And
that's not an "expert user" issue, either: it's not that folk
can't hack config files themselves, it's just that most folk
would rather not need to do that.
> By the way "chmod 660 /dev/usbscanner*" works for many devices ;-)
Every one of them some type of scanner! Do the three or four
scanner drivers all use the same char device framework/names?
I know the scanner code doesn't really work for other devices
that are known to work with user mode drivers... :)
- Dave
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