Tyson D Sawyer wrote:
Though I'm not real useful when it comes to contributing code at this time, I'd like to add my voice to those that feel the lack of decent topological names has real user impact and limits usability.
For us it isn't printers, but rather serial ports.
Just for the record, the issue I'm aware of right now isn't really "lack of topological names" ... it's "hard to get to them from user mode tools". Both 2.5.latest and 2.4.20 have the IDs, but so far they're most accessible in 2.5:
* HID devices return it using "physical" path IDs; evdev uses EVIOCGPHYS, hiddev uses HIDIOCGPHYS. (Only 2.5 so far?) * USB network devices (mostly) support ethtool, returning that ID using ETHTOOL_GDRVINFO in the "bus_info" field. (This is doable on 2.4.20, at least one driver does so already.) It's easy for drivers to return such things with an ioctl; maybe we should define a single code, rather than have every driver come up with its own access to this functionality. In terms of user mode tools actually _using_ physical IDs, the example I know of is "hidups". I'm not sure if it's part of te current NUT tools release, but the short version of the story there is that for an uninterruptible power supply you talk to using USB, you can use the HIDIOCGPHYS physical ID to make sure you're talking to the same UPS every time. (Yep, it'd be bad to remotely power down the wrong server...) It's exactly the same model people are used to with serial lines. The patch should be in the hidups list archives for last month.
We can use /proc/tty stuff in 2.4.20 (not sure when it was added) but would _MUCH_ rather see something that looks like the symlinks of devfs. This way COTS software will work properly without modification.
Part of the reason that's hard is that by definition, if its COTS it almost certainly doesn't have any real "device discovery" logic, as required to work with fully hotpluggable device frameworks. - Dave ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Scholarships for Techies! Can't afford IT training? All 2003 ictp students receive scholarships. Get hands-on training in Microsoft, Cisco, Sun, Linux/UNIX, and more. www.ictp.com/training/sourceforge.asp _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, use the last form field at: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-usb-devel
