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[9fans] Sheevaplug - USB working? Just checking

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Ethan Grammatikidis

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Sep 6, 2010, 10:44:22 AM9/6/10
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Just checking before I buy something; do the host-side USB ports work
on the Sheevaplug? That's the ports you plug USB devices into, not
the port you connect to a PC. I can never remember what the proper
term is.

erik quanstrom

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Sep 6, 2010, 11:31:44 AM9/6/10
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On Mon Sep 6 10:44:06 EDT 2010, eek...@fastmail.fm wrote:
> Just checking before I buy something; do the host-side USB ports work
> on the Sheevaplug? That's the ports you plug USB devices into,

yes. but life is not trouble-free:

plug# /boot/usbd: /dev/usb/ep2.0: warning: device with short descriptor
usb/hub... kb: #m/mousein: unknown device in # filename
usb/kb... kb: #Ι/kbin: unknown device in # filename
usb/kb... plug#

- erik

Nemo

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Sep 6, 2010, 12:55:47 PM9/6/10
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Iirc, there's still work to be done to get them working fully and properly. But i may be mistaken.
I remember I had to add support for kbin and mousein, as Erik points out.

ron minnich

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Sep 6, 2010, 1:04:13 PM9/6/10
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On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Nemo <nemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Iirc, there's still work to be done to get them working fully and  properly. But i may be mistaken.
> I remember I had to add support for kbin and mousein, as Erik points out.


Well, here is the kind of hackathon type of think it might be fun to
do at IWP9. Get the right people in the room, work for 24 hours and
get it right, either that or start hallucinating that we got it right
...

ron

erik quanstrom

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Sep 6, 2010, 1:11:21 PM9/6/10
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i like the idea. unfortunately, iirc this problem hangs on specifications
which we don't have. so perhaps it would be better to attack a problem
were we're not just guessing.

- erik

ron minnich

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Sep 6, 2010, 1:28:04 PM9/6/10
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On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 10:05 AM, erik quanstrom <quan...@quanstro.net> wrote:

> i like the idea.  unfortunately, iirc this problem hangs on specifications
> which we don't have.  so perhaps it would be better to attack a problem
> were we're not just guessing.

I've come to the conclusion that where hardware is concerned, I spend
a lot of time guessing ... docs or no ..
ron

ron minnich

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Sep 6, 2010, 1:29:00 PM9/6/10
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e.g.
"If the processor has an L3 cache, then bit 15 of msr C001_102A
(ClLinesToNbDis) must be set. This bit needs to eventually be cleared
in order for the OS to use the L3 cache. But BIOS must not clear this
bit until cacheable accesses to the flash chip are no longer needed.
This situation applies only to family 10h processors that have L3 cache."

yikes.

ron

Skip Tavakkolian

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Sep 6, 2010, 1:57:08 PM9/6/10
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it works for all usb disks i've tried but has never worked for
Bluetooth devices. the last time i looked, i was left with a guess
that the driver needed to support some unholy handshake with the
built-in "Transaction Translator"; not sure if that's really the
problem. Geoff and Nemo worked on disabling various caches which
fixed most earlier issues.

-Skip

ge...@plan9.bell-labs.com

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Sep 6, 2010, 3:52:57 PM9/6/10
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As the documentation says, the ARM ports are currently
only CPU kernels.

Mouse and keyboard support should be trivial to add
and will come once (if) video is working on the Guruplug
Display or OpenRD. This could take a long while, since
the video controller is undocumented (there isn't even
Linux driver source available). Until then, there's
little point to having them. Just use the serial console
or cpu in, as bootes if necessary.

erik quanstrom

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Sep 6, 2010, 5:11:39 PM9/6/10
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> Mouse and keyboard support should be trivial to add
> and will come once (if) video is working on the Guruplug
> Display or OpenRD. This could take a long while, since
> the video controller is undocumented (there isn't even
> Linux driver source available). Until then, there's
> little point to having them. Just use the serial console
> or cpu in, as bootes if necessary.

i think it supports vesa. problem is, the video controller
is a pci(e) device. so first, one needs to support pci.

- erik

Ethan Grammatikidis

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Sep 6, 2010, 5:33:38 PM9/6/10
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On 6 Sep 2010, at 6:55 pm, Skip Tavakkolian wrote:

> it works for all usb disks i've tried but has never worked for
> Bluetooth devices.

well if it works for all usb disks it's worth my while getting one,
not a sheevaplug as such, rather a seagate freeagent go dockstar
which is currently €25 from atelco.de or $40 direct from seagate.
aiju tells me it has the same soc.

i'd be happy if usb audio works too, but it's not important.

> the last time i looked, i was left with a guess
> that the driver needed to support some unholy handshake with the
> built-in "Transaction Translator"; not sure if that's really the
> problem. Geoff and Nemo worked on disabling various caches which
> fixed most earlier issues.

what the heck is a "transaction translator"? it sound evil. :D

>
> -Skip
>
>> On Mon Sep 6 13:03:54 EDT 2010, rmin...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 9:52 AM, Nemo <nemo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Iirc, there's still work to be done to get them working fully
>>>> and properly. But i may be mistaken.
>>>> I remember I had to add support for kbin and mousein, as Erik
>>>> points out.
>>>
>>>
>>> Well, here is the kind of hackathon type of think it might be fun to
>>> do at IWP9. Get the right people in the room, work for 24 hours and
>>> get it right, either that or start hallucinating that we got it
>>> right
>>
>> i like the idea. unfortunately, iirc this problem hangs on
>> specifications
>> which we don't have. so perhaps it would be better to attack a
>> problem
>> were we're not just guessing.

ron, you're making me wish i could go to iwp9, :) but erik's right.

>>
>> - erik
>
>


Tristan Plumb

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Sep 6, 2010, 6:31:39 PM9/6/10
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> Mouse and keyboard support should be trivial to add and will come once (if)
> video is working on the Guruplug Display or OpenRD. This could take a long
> while, since the video controller is undocumented (there isn't even Linux
> driver source available).

There is (or maybe are two) X11 drivers available... though there isn't much
talking about it, the first one at least supported the Z11 (xg27 core) at one
point.

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-xgi/

and maybe?

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-xgixp/

enjoy,
Tristan

--
All original matter is hereby placed immediately under the public domain.

erik quanstrom

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Sep 6, 2010, 6:35:47 PM9/6/10
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my experience is that there's a big difference between wild guessing
and directed guessing. usually documentation is the difference between
the two. well, documentation and experience.

- erik

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