G'day team, I spent some time working a press release for the USB 2.0 support in 2.4.19 (which will be the first production kernel to have High Speed support). I plan to release it on the day that 2.4.19 is released.
I have held off for a long time waiting for Marcelo to send me a quote, but he has stopped answering my emails, so I think we'll go with what we have. If anyone has any comments or concerns with the content of the attached document, please contact me. Brad -- http://conf.linux.org.au. 22-25Jan2003. Perth, Australia. Birds in Black.
Press Release - XX May 2002 Linux USB Project Provides USB 2.0 Support NOT FOR PUBLICATION - This is a draft press release, and is a Copyrighted work of Brad Hards (C) 2002. Since this press release may contain serious errors or omissions, it is not approved for release outside the mailing list to which it is posted, and may not be published in any form. A release version of this press release is anticipated in the near future, which will be approved for publication. Linux USB developers reached a milestone with the recent release of the Linux 2.4.19 kernel which features High Speed USB 2.0 support and other USB driver improvements. This support has been in available for testing from the Linux USB project for over a year, and the EHCI host controller driver, hub driver and device controller support is now considered sufficiently reliable for wider use. While significant work remains to be be done on the USB 2.0 support and the support is still considered somewhat experimental, key USB 2.0 developer David Brownell commented "People have been using USB 2.0 with usb-storage devices from Linux hosts since June 2001". Most major Linux distributions will include USB 2.0 support in the near future. Redhat and Mandrake both currently include limited USB 2.0 support. Jason Ziller, chairman of the USB Implementers Forum, said "I am excited about Hi-Speed USB 2.0 being included in the latest Linux kernel. Linux users can now take advantage of significantly faster Hi-Speed USB 2.0 devices. That support is now becoming widely available in new PC and peripherals, and it is excellent to see widespread operating system support." The Linux USB project has already delivered excellent support for the most common low-speed (1.5Mbps) and full-speed (12Mbps) devices, and the logical progression is to High Speed (480Mbps) devices. The 2.4.19 kernel supports most High Speed USB hard disks and CD-ROMs, the Cypress EZUSB-FX2 chips, USB 2.0 hubs (using NEC hub controller chips) and High Speed USB host controllers (supporting the EHCI specification) from Intel, NEC, Philips, VIA and others. The Linux kernel typically achieves I/O rates of from 10-20 MBytes/sec with the 2.4.19 kernel using readily available retail USB 2.0 hard drives. These rates currently compare favorably with the speeds that other operating systems achieve with the same High Speed host controllers and USB disk drives. Future enhancements are expected to produce substantial speed increases. These changes will be tested in the Linux 2.5 kernel (which is the current development release), and will ensure that the USB 2.0 support in the Linux 2.6 stable release is both reliable and fast. Key supporters of the Linux USB 2.0 activities include Adaptec, Cypress, IOGEAR, Netchip Technologies, Orange Micro and VIA. About the Linux USB project The Linux USB project is developing USB support for the Linux 2.2, Linux 2.4 and Linux 2.5 kernels. The Linux USB homepage is http://www.linux-usb.org Supporters of Linux USB development include: 3Com, Adaptec, APC, CATC, Compaq, Cypress, Datalux, IOGEAR, Iomega, Kodak, Netchip Technology, Orange Micro, Sandisk, SuSE, VIA and Y-E Data. Contact information For further details, contact Brad Hards ([EMAIL PROTECTED]).
