USB - the Elephant in our Room

[rmistero]

A little cartoon to illustrate :



Here is the link..
http://asiapac.com.au/images/THE_SOFTWA ... ROJECT.jpg

Ok the support and community on this project is really good.. That's the good thing about it actually...

[pluggy]

Oye !

But reading this thread I'm really confused about the aim of this board... it aims to be cheap/affordable but then you need to buy expensive class 10 SD card, expensive good PSU, expensive good keyboard... So it is cheap for the foundation, it is not for the poor children... Really good for specialised Electronic shops..

You don't need to buy class 10 cards or expensive keyboards. A plain old cheap class 4 works perfectly, a class 10 probably won't even give any noticeable performance boost in the real world. Its been established that its the expensive keyboards that give most problems. Certainly of the Half dozen USB keyboards I own, its only the most expensive one (A Microsoft sidewinder) that gives problems. The rest of the motley collection of cheap non-descripts (and an old Apple) work fine.

You can't get around the fact that the Pi needs a good power supply. The foundation were begging for problems going for the micro-USB standard IMO. Cheap crappy micro-USBs will almost certainly charge your smartphone, they won't run a computer that doesn't have a battery to soak up all all the 'mush' . The USB on the Pi is 500% better now with the latest updates than it was when they first became available, its still a long way from good however.

[rmistero]

Certainly of the Half dozen USB keyboards I own

Of course, children and home users in general own half a dozen of keyboards they can chose from.. I suppose you also have half a dozen of spare PSU to chose from too... Like most of us ..
By expensive, I meant that suppliers are surfing on this to put up the prices of items compatible with the raspberry Pi because one must use a restrictive list of compatible items..
I agree with you, the foundation was asking for trouble at the minute they decided not to provide the correct/tested PSU with the board. It is terrible decease of our time.. I have noticed that with the ebook readers where you need to buy your PSU separately.. A yeah.. it looks cheaper when you buy it...

[pluggy]

Certainly of the Half dozen USB keyboards I own

Of course, children and home users in general own half a dozen of keyboards they can chose from.. I suppose you also have half a dozen of spare PSU to chose from too... Like most of us ..
By expensive, I meant that suppliers are surfing on this to put up the prices of items compatible with the raspberry Pi because one must use a restrictive list of compatible items..
I agree with you, the foundation was asking for trouble at the minute they decided not to provide the correct/tested PSU with the board. It is terrible decease of our time.. I have noticed that with the ebook readers where you need to buy your PSU separately.. A yeah.. it looks cheaper when you buy it...

The half dozen USB keyboards I own was intended to be an illustration that you don't need an expensive keyboard, not that having them is in any way typical. I'm a self employed computer repair man, I accumulate 'junk' - it goes with the territory. It is in no way typical. The suggested keyboards for the typical user were the cheap ones you can buy at your local supermarket (Tesco and Asda in this country). I bought most of the stuff I hadn't accumulated from Ebay (Class 4 SD cards form Sandisk and Samsung, some no-name power supplies sold as 'Pi power supplies' and a cheap HDMI-DVI cable to work with an 'accumulated' monitor.) I think the 'fetish' with class 10 cards is perpetrated by people with a big number thing, the class numbers have nothing to do with the typical use in a Raspberry Pi. You're more likely to run into problems with Class 10 cards and 'posh' named power supplies because of the roaring trade done in low quality fakes. Nobody bothers faking less expensive stuff.

[japie]

I tried 3.6.1 from github but I suppose the same USB driver is there as in current "stable" kernel since it suffers the same flaw when connecting usb-serial stuff.
Anyway I wrapped the kernel and modules up for who like to try it to: http://www.japie.deserver.nl/ftp/Pi/

[jamesh]

And how long will it take for a software solution assuming we have one (maybe 2) person(s) working on it in spare time?
Maybe a rev. C Pi will be announced soon with a broadcom soc using another
usb implementation, the same way the 512Mbyte Pi suddenly saw the light?
I understand this has to remain a secret as there is still plenty of rev. B stock that needs to be sold.

There is no device with a different SOC planned.

As for the timescale for USB, I don't know. People are working on it.

[jamesh]

Certainly of the Half dozen USB keyboards I own

Of course, children and home users in general own half a dozen of keyboards they can chose from.. I suppose you also have half a dozen of spare PSU to chose from too... Like most of us ..
By expensive, I meant that suppliers are surfing on this to put up the prices of items compatible with the raspberry Pi because one must use a restrictive list of compatible items..
I agree with you, the foundation was asking for trouble at the minute they decided not to provide the correct/tested PSU with the board. It is terrible decease of our time.. I have noticed that with the ebook readers where you need to buy your PSU separately.. A yeah.. it looks cheaper when you buy it...

Keyboard, £5,decent power supply £5 - I use the one that came with my Kindle, or a decent phone charger (Nokia, Samsung both seem to work OK).The point being, you are being disingenuous saying you need to buy expensive stuff. You don't. Some people have all the kit already, some don't. By not including it the price can be kept right down for those people that have the kit, and the peeple who don;t? Well they just have to buy it. If you don't have anything,then there is additional cost. That seems obvious, but the baserline price is as specified.

Anyway, this is a thread about USB.

[jamesh]

Oye !

Like some others my board happens to have problems even without USB devices connected it just the NIC is enough to hang the USB system.. Let's say it comes from a bad batch.. Fair enough.. RMA... 1 in a 1000 Eben says..
But reading this thread I'm really confused about the aim of this board... it aims to be cheap/affordable but then you need to buy expensive class 10 SD card, expensive good PSU, expensive good keyboard... So it is cheap for the foundation, it is not for the poor children... Really good for specialised Electronic shops..

Also, I could read here and there that it was not designed to be used with Wifi adapters or exotic USB adapters like an external HDD.. ( elinux wiki on USB,..), just keyboard and mouse...

The 80's are long time gone..

Anyway, since it seems it was about the children in mind when designed,bla bla bla.. as far as I know, home users use WiFi nowadays. Ok.. It is a computer for "poor" children with a TV (a quite recent/expensive one with a HDMI port) and the TV is 2-10M away from the router modem but that's OK because they are poor so they are supposed to live in small council flats hence no need for WiFi in first place and actually they didn't have Internet.. Same goes with schools.. Everyone knows that schools are rich and can buy 20+ TVs with HDMI ports..

Basically without a steady reliable USB system, this board is useless.. Everyone knows it, especially the "foundation"...

I really like this expression "the Elephant in our Room" . It is perfect, no need to add more, the rest was just bla bla bla and self pity.. Specially this very post.. but it is therapeutic... :p

It is aimed as a teaching device, and most people who are taught are children.
WIfi adapters generally work OK, external HDD's generally work OK.
Wifi is NOT the standard in home - although it is common. I use hard wired stuff and Wifi.
TV's have been sold with HDMI for the last 5 years. Most people have one at home - even those on lower incomes. ALl monitors I bought in last couple of years have either DVI or HDMI.

So please stop spreading disinformation and lies, and ,making yourself look silly with false claims.

[rmistero]

Hey Jamesh !

WIfi adapters generally work OK, external HDD's generally work OK.

With a Powered Hub,.. but not any powered hub..

Wifi is NOT the standard in home - although it is common. I use hard wired stuff and Wifi.
TV's have been sold with HDMI for the last 5 years. Most people have one at home - even those on lower incomes. ALl monitors I bought in last couple of years have either DVI or HDMI.
[..]
Keyboard, £5,decent power supply £5 - I use the one that came with my Kindle,

I'd really like to see your figures, really... I would love to hear that someone made a survey on how far the family TV is from the telephone/modem router in modern houses !
....Kindle... £69 ...

NOTE: When I could finally afford Internet 10 years ago, Wifi was almost ready to become the norm.. in France...

I don't who do you represent exactly but as for this :

So please stop spreading disinformation and lies, and ,making yourself look silly with false claims.

I have just added the cost of accessories at RS component of basic stuffs you need ( your £5 PSU, right cables,..) => £33. Hmm ..not so cheap.. and no keyboard or mouse..

Just to let you know, it is comments ( from you ) like this one, that have deeply irritated me the other day..

$3M spent, on a 3 year old chip when there are much better ways to make money...???
[..]

I leave you the last word if you wish to waste your time with me...

Gordon ( gsh),

It seem that you have more clue of what is really happening.

Could we have an official statement from the foundation on the USB issues ?

1. What are the Opened issues ?
2. What is the respective action plan for each issue in order to solve them ?
3. For each issue, if cause is known ? Can we follow the progress somewhere ? Bugzilla,..? Do you need testers ?
4. For each issue, if the cause is unknown ? Can you reproduce the issue in house ? I understood that the foundation look at defective RMAed board but do you have a process to get the exact symptoms and troubleshooting done ( like steps to reproduce) on a given board ?

Thank you.

[jamesh]

Hey Jamesh !

WIfi adapters generally work OK, external HDD's generally work OK.

With a Powered Hub,.. but not any powered hub..

Wifi is NOT the standard in home - although it is common. I use hard wired stuff and Wifi.
TV's have been sold with HDMI for the last 5 years. Most people have one at home - even those on lower incomes. ALl monitors I bought in last couple of years have either DVI or HDMI.
[..]
Keyboard, £5,decent power supply £5 - I use the one that came with my Kindle,

I'd really like to see your figures, really... I would love to hear that someone made a survey on how far the family TV is from the telephone/modem router in modern houses !
....Kindle... £69 ...

NOTE: When I could finally afford Internet 10 years ago, Wifi was almost ready to become the norm.. in France...

I don't who do you represent exactly but as for this :

So please stop spreading disinformation and lies, and ,making yourself look silly with false claims.

I have just added the cost of accessories at RS component of basic stuffs you need ( your £5 PSU, right cables,..) => £33. Hmm ..not so cheap.. and no keyboard or mouse..

Just to let you know, it is comments ( from you ) like this one, that have deeply irritated me the other day..

$3M spent, on a 3 year old chip when there are much better ways to make money...???
[..]

I leave you the last word if you wish to waste your time with me...

Gordon ( gsh),

It seem that you have more clue of what is really happening.

Could we have an official statement from the foundation on the USB issues ?

1. What are the Opened issues ?
2. What is the respective action plan for each issue in order to solve them ?
3. For each issue, if cause is known ? Can we follow the progress somewhere ? Bugzilla,..? Do you need testers ?
4. For each issue, if the cause is unknown ? Can you reproduce the issue in house ? I understood that the foundation look at defective RMAed board but do you have a process to get the exact symptoms and troubleshooting done ( like steps to reproduce) on a given board ?

Thank you.

Just to help you out, I'm a moderator here, and I work for Broadcom. Your attitude is not something we appreciate here, so I'd like to politely ask you to keep it civil.

I' more than happy to help answer questions, and try and provide information, providing questions are asked politely and in keeping with the general atmosphere of this forum. So far, you've been ringing the wrong bells.

Firstly, I'd suggest you read this thread from start to end - all your questions are already answered.

I have no figures on wifi vs wired takeup - I'm assuming wifi is more popular, but certainly not vastly outnumbering other forms of networking. It certainly not so overwhelming as to need to build WIfi in to the device as some extra cost, especially in schools where too many Wifi enabled devices will slow the whole network down. You also need to think about power line networking etc. And as for asking how far the modem is from the TV? So what? Ethernet cable is cheaper than Wifi adapters although not as convenient.

And your point about the Kindle being £69 is...what? It was what's known as an EXAMPLE where people may already have a high quality charger in house - nothing more. Same applies to good quality phone chargers etc. Some people have them some don't

ANd I'm really not sure why you would find a comment on modifications to a three year old chip so irritating. It's pure commercial decisioning. No more no less.

[Nr90]

I am afraid this is getting more and more off topic, however I'd still like to comment on the wifi discussion.

Every college in the Netherlands uses wifi for non-desktop computers.
Most student houses in the Netherlands only provide wifi.
These might not be the exact target audience, however I still think your stance still underestimates the importance of wifi in the education sector.
Wifi might not be the only used method as of yet, however I believe this will not take long.

I know very little about the prices of a built in wifi adapter, however if it was cheap I would think it would be good to include it.

[rmistero]

Ah ! You are a moderator.. It sounds like a threat... Well .. Then ban me from the forum.. a paying customer, for saying what he thinks about the product he bought and asking some questions, even offering some help .. Great...

No doubt that my posts were slightly of subject but as for civility, I don't see where I was rude.. Oh yeah, I had an opinion ( however wrong it is ) that doesn't show the raspberry pi under a positive light.. Sorry the foundation.. It should have been call it Terminus ( special ref to Asimov )..

No worries, I will keep it quiet, I don t want to disrupt the elephant in room more..

nite nite.

[tufty]

If I might interject...

USB is still an issue. Much of this stems from the (as I understand it) fact that the USB controller IP used in the SoC is pretty much undocumented beyond the (buggy) driver implementation provided by Synopsys. This is compounded by the fact that the Pi uses that IP in a way that most people don't, viz: as a controller rather than as a device.

This is *not* something that the Foundation have any control over, nor is it even the fault of Broadcom, who simply used a piece of silicon IP as part of the design of the 2385 SoC - in most use cases, the IP and driver work "well enough" not to cause any problems, so you can't even blame Broadcom. Yes, with hindsight, it's not the best, but it's too late now. I'm sure Gordon would be overjoyed if it suddenly, magically, got replaced with something else. Y'know, something that works out of the box.

Unfortunately, that's not gonna happen, and Gordon is heroically slaving away at actually fixing the issues. And he's doing a bloody good job of it; USB performance and stability has improved massively since the first release. It's still far from perfect, but we all know that.

Wifi vs wired ethernet is both off topic (after all, we're talking about USB here, despite the fact that ethernet and wifi must, by necessity, pass over USB - drivers for *net over USB are separate from the USB transport layer) and, frankly, whining about a situation that is unlikely to change in the near future - whether your router is close enough to your television or not is irrelevant.

Likewise, cost. There have been many and interminable threads about the cost of peripherals. Yes, you need to have a decent power supply. If there's been one major hardware flaw in the evolution of the Pi, it was the move to micro-usb, and the associated move to linear rather than switching regulators - it's caused people to expect 50p eBay chargers to work, and it's upped the power consumption of the board overall. But it's far too late to complain about it, the design is what it is, and a decent 1A+ micro-usb PSU *bought over the counter* is still cheaper than getting a 6/9/12v power brick with the right barrel connector and spec. And, of course, it's again offtopic in a thread about USB issues. Keyboards and mice are keyboards and mice, yes they cost money, yes, it's currently a bit of a lottery as to whether the one you have in hand is going to work out of the box, yes, it's being looked at (see comments about Gordon heroically slaving over the keyboard).

What it comes down to is this. The Pi is what it is. It's a beta release, it's being worked on; if you can't live with that, go get your money back and get something else. Otherwise live with its flaws, accept them for what they are, show a positive attitude towards helping getting them fixed (after all, we're all testers) and feel happy in the fact that you're indirectly helping a far greater cause.

Being an arse about it will get you banned. That's not a threat (after all, I'm not a mod), it's a pure statement of fact. The (unpaid) mods here have to deal with a lot of pointless trolling, and if you get flagged as a troll you'll (rightly) get banhammered.

Simon

[thradtke]

[...] in most use cases, the IP and driver work "well enough" not to cause any problems [...]

I still don't even know which problems are caused by hardware and which by software, or if they have anything to do with the USB controller in the first place. Problems are to be expected from a new system, and especially when someone approaches it who is not fluent in Linux et al. Here lies one source of anger: The current state of the system is undocumented to the 'consumer' (I understand that this takes time).

Back to the quote: I was facing problems from day one up to the current day. Last action was connecting a Behringer UFO202, resulting again in keyboard problems. Just didn't know the Behringer was a USB 1.1 device and therefore not compatible in my context. Hard to imagine most people will never mix devices with different speeds/protocols.

A lot of heat will be taken out when (the necessary imo) documentation work is finished, and I'm taking about (1) a statement that the RPi is beta hardware before ordering it and (2) some sheet of paper within the scope of delivery telling what works and what will cause trouble.

[rmistero]

Right, Ok.. I have to admit I didn't read the full thread.. I still didn't .. : ) ... As I lost focus after 12 pages..
thradtke got my point.. Thank you !
NOTE: ok I should not have used sarcasm and went off topic... fair enough, my apologies for this.

1. As few people mentioned or requested, this board should be clearly advertised as a Beta version on this website (The FAQ should clearly stipulate that is still a beta project) and at the suppliers too.
I find strange that another person asked for that before and nothing was done.

Here is a suggestion :

What’s a Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.
IMPORTANT: The raspberry Pi is currently in Beta testing and still need a significant amount of work to create a great child-game like experience !

NOTE: The very fact that the Beta versions of the board were sold to auction before the 29/02 is really misleading.. I didn't realised that this was another Beta version.
I was expecting the basic functions to be stable enough like the ethernet, Am I that unlucky ? NOTE: most of the small USB devices (keyboards, NICs ( wifi and ethernet), camera,..), I have in my house don't work properly even if I short temporarly the polyfuse F1 and F2 (it is better tho).. That leaves me with many less projects I had in mind .. Hence the frustration..

2. I understand that this project is a charity run by unpaid people.. But does it mean that it can't be run in an more efficient manner or at least seek for improvements ? There are dozen of open community based projects on this board already.Yet the troubleshooting seems to be handled in centralized/close sources manner.
I mean it is great that gsh provides regular updates but it would even better if he could share the details of his findings so that others ( not me on that one) could influence the solution too.

I think I read somewhere that the hardware is not open sources. In any case, it must be since the components are not. However, the software side is.

If this is meant to be a world wide open sources project, it shouldn't have only 1 person working on it on one massive issue/project like this ( the USB sub system I mean). A group of developers could work on it and share. Again, findings ( USB debug logs...) should be shared I think.

3. An online tool ( Bugzilla? launchpad ? raspbian got one) could be used to effectively track each bug and validate them. First, It would help everyone to understand what are the current problems with following the issues and their respective status (status opened/closed) . This would help with duplicates, workflow and maybe help to find the people with the right set of skills for a given task ( here I am not implying that it is not already the case with gsh in this case).
It would be easier to find all gsh updates in one place without all the posts off topic and trolls around !

NOTE : Another side benefit of tracking bugs is that it helps with the release notes and documentations.

I hope my feedbacks find some echo and if they don't.. well .. I ought to try.

Sorry again for the trolling..

Nicolas

[Lob0426]

I have made sure that all of my devices are USB 2.0 compliant. I have little or no trouble with my RasPii. I guess the real problem is mixing 1.1 and 2.0 devices. This could be a real problem in the third world where they may be using whatever they can find.

I have a Lapdock with a WiFi adapter and a USB HDD (Seagate FreeAgent Goflex drive) using the stock single USB cable. It runs perfect.
I have a highly modified RasPi, I hardwired a 4 port hub onto it and it now has 5 USB ports. back-powers through the hub. Replaced the polyfuses on F1/F2/F3. It works with 320GB Seagate 2.5" drive with a USB to SATA adapter. The Adapter has a "Y" connector for additional power. The HDD runs on it either as single or double USB. It also can use either of the two WiFi adapters with no problems.
And the third one is running just fine, headless, from a 500ma MusicPower iPod recharger.

I have used various power adapters and had no issues at all. Most likely lucky, but I also made sure that I used the shortest (18" or less) USB cables just to be sure. The worst problem I had was early on the Lapdock hub fought with the RasPi hub. The WiFi would not work. Someone found the way to shut down the Ethernet on the RasPi and that cured the problem. The problem occasinally reappears if I unplug the WiFi and use Ethernet, then try to replug the WiFi. There are a whole lot fewer problems than when the first ones were out. Most of it has been through changes to firmware and OS distribution changes.

All are running RasPbian Wheezy 9/18/12.

Overall the main problem is that there are so many people trying to do so many things with the RasPi. If it was only being used for its original intent, as a programming tool, there really would not be that many problems with the release of the revision 2.0 boards now out.

The SoC was designed to be a client not a host. So there in lies most of the problems. It was supposed to connect a computer, not be the computer! If there is ever a "C model" I think it will be a very different animal from the current models! The foundation has learned a lot about the difference between what you design and what everbody is going to do with it. They could have saved themselves a lot of headaches by just printing this disclaimer. "The Raspberry Pi is, an ARM based device, designed specifically to be a teaching device for students. Any other use, is at your own risk and, will not be supported by the Raspberry Pi foundation!". They have not chosen that route!

[javatmn]

I hope Raspberry Pi could post something like "USB video/audio has some issues to be solved..." in the website, tt has been out for more than half a year, but i still can not get a 640x480 image from my USB camera!

[jamesh]

2. I understand that this project is a charity run by unpaid people.. But does it mean that it can't be run in an more efficient manner or at least seek for improvements ? There are dozen of open community based projects on this board already.Yet the troubleshooting seems to be handled in centralized/close sources manner.
I mean it is great that gsh provides regular updates but it would even better if he could share the details of his findings so that others ( not me on that one) could influence the solution too.

I think I read somewhere that the hardware is not open sources. In any case, it must be since the components are not. However, the software side is.

If this is meant to be a world wide open sources project, it shouldn't have only 1 person working on it on one massive issue/project like this ( the USB sub system I mean). A group of developers could work on it and share. Again, findings ( USB debug logs...) should be shared I think.

3. An online tool ( Bugzilla? launchpad ? raspbian got one) could be used to effectively track each bug and validate them. First, It would help everyone to understand what are the current problems with following the issues and their respective status (status opened/closed) . This would help with duplicates, workflow and maybe help to find the people with the right set of skills for a given task ( here I am not implying that it is not already the case with gsh in this case).
It would be easier to find all gsh updates in one place without all the posts off topic and trolls around !

Sorry again for the trolling..

Nicolas

There is a bugzilla page.
There have been OSS projects trying to sort out the driver before - but they lack in information on the hardware and haven't got anywhere. Gordon not only has access to the hardware documentation, he also has access to the RTL of the actual silicon, which is why he (or others at Broadcom) are best positioned to fix the issue. It's not a question of logs etc, we know what the problem is and can replicate it, but finding a solution is difficult. And I believe Gordon has been pretty forthcoming in what the problems are and the changes that have been made so far - it's all in this thread for anyone who actually takes the time to read it.
Yes, the source for the driver is Open - anyone who wants to contribute can.

[gsh]

Thanks for the quote:

"The Raspberry Pi is, an ARM based device, designed specifically to be a teaching device for students. Any other use, is at your own risk and, will not be supported by the Raspberry Pi foundation!"

That's the point, I'm sure everyone wants their particular bit of random USB hardware to work on the PI. Serial USB connections would be fine if they were USB 2 or they used the USB spec in the way it was meant to be used. In general all the problems I've seen can be classified as:

1) Split transactions (i.e. USB1 devices over USB2 connections) not being sent at the right time, I've done a huge amount of work on this to reduce latencies and improve the scheduling.
2) Split NAKs causing huge interrupt flooding. I've 'fixed' this by holding off NAKs specifically in this context.
3) Power. Most of the problems we've seen, especially Wifi, HDDs etc etc. are due to poor mismanagement of power supplies. Just because it works when plugged into a PC doesn't mean it is a valid USB compatible power sink. Many of these devices (especially the HDs but also the Wifi devices) require periods of over 500mA and that's why we need to think more about that power.

I would love there to be a need for a bug tracking system, this is a great tool when there is more than one person working on a project. Unfortunately there isn't, I've many times asked for people to come forward with expertise in USB hosts or USB hubs or split transactions or EHCI and have so far had a flood of '0' people to my door... Sorry there is only one person working on this problem because there is only one person capable of working on the problem (it seems) is the reader would like to come along understand the code and support the work we're doing then great.

Testing, to be honest, I've got an army of people willing to test and complain about my fixes, so don't be surprised if I don't jump at the offer of someone to do some testing work. There are specific people who have brought up specific problems to me and have helped me reproduce problems, Yoctopuce is one such who even went to the lengths of sending me some hardware and some test code to reproduce his issues. His is the first problem with split transactions that I tried to fix!

So just to keep people up to date, I've been working on an EHCI shim for the DWC_OTG hardware, what this means is that I'm going to implement the EHCI layer in software (using a FIQ or using the VPU processor). This means that the split transaction scheduling should be perfect (because I can guarantee a low latency interrupt response using a FIQ or the VPU).

Currently I've got it enumerating the 9512 Hub but need to wire it up to the USB analyser to find out what#s going wrong, probably something relatively simple. Once I've got it into a working state I'm hoping that somebody is going to help with getting other devices working. Please get in touch if you have any experience with:

1) USB
2) C
3) Linux drivers
4) EHCI

Gordon

[japie]

Gorden you are doing a great job! (don't listen to other messages

[Burngate]

Gorden you are doing a great job! (don't listen to other messages

Plus one!

It might help if someone - not Gordon, he's already got too much to do - were to outline the USB system. At least it would help me.

There's talk of USB 1.1 versus 2.0. But according to what I've read even something that's 1.1 should adhere to the 2.0 spec apart from high speed.
Do people mean low and full speed versus high speed? or just full speed versus high speed? or low speed versus full or high speed?

My mental picture of the system has some electronics, driven by some blob software, handing something on to the Arm and its software (be that Linux, or RISC OS, or bare-metal)
Which bit does what? For example, does the arm hand a packet to the blob and let that sort it out, or does the arm have to specify the speed etc. with the blob being dumb?

What I need is a tutorial specifically on the Pi USB!

[abishur]

Ah ! You are a moderator.. It sounds like a threat...

You're interpreting *WAY* too much in that statement, the point was that he's actually a person of great knowledge and you should listen to what he's saying. Though treating a moderator rudely on any forum, not just ours, would indeed be a great way to get banned

Well .. Then ban me from the forum.. a paying customer, for saying what he thinks about the product he bought and asking some questions, even offering some help .. Great...

Contrary to popular belief at a less civil forum, we do not blindly ban people for pointing out things that are wrong about the pi, otherwise we wouldn't have this thread, or the one asking if 512MB is a good thing, or any threads in the troubleshooting section. We do ban people for repeatedly pushing some agenda that is patently false, or using a false equivalency argument, or coming into the forum with an oddly aggressive stance for what appears to be the purpose of stirring up trouble. Especially if they're hijacking a thread to do to.

No doubt that my posts were slightly of subject but as for civility, I don't see where I was rude.. Oh yeah, I had an opinion ( however wrong it is ) that doesn't show the raspberry pi under a positive light.. Sorry the foundation.. It should have been call it Terminus ( special ref to Asimov )..

Again, we don't ban for opinions, how on earth is this idea perpetuated? Anyone with half a brain who spent some time on the forum would quickly see a vast range of differing opinions about the pi, it's proper application, and what they think of its current status. See the above for what we ban for.

No worries, I will keep it quiet, I don t want to disrupt the elephant in room more..

This analogy is no longer as apt as when the thread was first made (and it wasn't very apt back then). An Elephant in the room is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is either being ignored or going unaddressed. When this thread was initially created it was already actively being addressed, but now the entire community is involved at least in discussing how the latest update affected their issue. So neither ignored or unaddressed, not an elephant in the room at all.

[rmistero]

Gordon, first of all thank you for having taken the time to write a detailed summary.

It is strange that my pi developed the symptoms of the split transaction after running for 2 months
See (http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 41#p195941).
NOTE: To spare everyone to read, it I use this pi as headless.. no usb other than internelt ethernet card.. ethernet dies...
But you are already aware of this since you asked me to RMA it in a private message so you can test it.
I had noticed that you have requested for help since back in July. Hence my suggetions.
People with the peculiar skill set like that you are after, are generaly busy, you need to look for them. Or at least advertise better... Definitely not in a 25 pages discussion. Sorry Jamesh but I have worked in support for many years and if there is a constant amongst ITs, consumers, engineers ... No one read long threads. emails... Because everyone is busy !

Also, I was just reading this excellent magazine the MagPI and ...
I think you should all talk to the head of the foundation, there is a clear divergence in views.

This is the interview from Eben and Liz from MagPi issue 4 (Aug 2012 ) - see in bold the points where you contradict :

Q1 4: How many Raspberry Pis have you sold so far?

Liz: There are more than 200k in the wild now, and there are orders for...well more than that, but Eben is saying I can't say how many.

me : Since you keep saying that it is a beta board.. Then you have sold over 200k of beta board ..

About the usage of the Raspberry Pi :

Q1 8: A majority of Raspberry Pi owners / buyers seem to be doing this to get a very cheap 1 080p
capable media player rather than a programming / experimenting computer that the Raspberry Pi was originally meant to be. What are your feelings about this?

Eben: It's great news.We're not some bunch of use-case fascists . We don't care what people do with it as long as people do *stuff* with it. You've got to remember that our goal for the UK is to get 1 000 new CS students per year.
That's a really modest goal...

Liz: It doesn't matter if most of them end up as media players.[...] it's all good for the project. We're already seeing a lot of people on Twitter saying "I saw one at my friend's house; I'm going to order one." It's exactly what we were hoping for.

Q2: What is your attitude towards Commercial Pi Projects? Some projects might get very large, and need a large quantity of Pi's. I've searched the forum, but haven't found conclusive proof that you approve of commercial projects?

Liz: We totally approve of them.

Eben: More than that; we think they're completely vital to the future success of Raspberry Pi. People shouldn't think that just because we're a charity we're not in favour of people making money.
You should totally quote Peter Mandelson. "I am intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich."
MagPi: [Note - following this interview, the order limits have been lifted and multiple Raspberry
Pis can now be ordered.]

Conclusion ( this time really I won t come back on that .. I 'm really busy too and I spent too much time on this already ) :

However noble is the goal, does it justify the means ?

Not clearly advertising this board to home consumers as a beta would be simply dishonest and misleading.
NOTE: I know lots of people with the skill set you are after. However, I won't contact them until the aim of the project is clarified and also what is the impact of Broadcom as an employer on it ( Jamesh, whoever is involved in this and working for broadcom is still bound by contract to broadcom's trade secrecy).

[shuckle]

In my opinion this thread is long enough without this kind of useless writes. Let us keep this in tech so that it is usefull to people.
I am using RPi with usb. I have pfoblems with web cam and clearly those do not work without the camera module. Also I can not use wifi and wireless keyboard at the same time without usb hub. But basically RPi works great. You can not seriously expect perfect computer at 50€! just work around what does not work! And have fun in inventing how things CAN be made to work.

[jamesh]

Gordon, first of all thank you for having taken the time to write a detailed summary.

It is strange that my pi developed the symptoms of the split transaction after running for 2 months
See (http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 41#p195941).
NOTE: To spare everyone to read, it I use this pi as headless.. no usb other than internelt ethernet card.. ethernet dies...
But you are already aware of this since you asked me to RMA it in a private message so you can test it.
I had noticed that you have requested for help since back in July. Hence my suggetions.
People with the peculiar skill set like that you are after, are generaly busy, you need to look for them. Or at least advertise better... Definitely not in a 25 pages discussion. Sorry Jamesh but I have worked in support for many years and if there is a constant amongst ITs, consumers, engineers ... No one read long threads. emails... Because everyone is busy !

Also, I was just reading this excellent magazine the MagPI and ...
I think you should all talk to the head of the foundation, there is a clear divergence in views.

This is the interview from Eben and Liz from MagPi issue 4 (Aug 2012 ) - see in bold the points where you contradict :

Q1 4: How many Raspberry Pis have you sold so far?

Liz: There are more than 200k in the wild now, and there are orders for...well more than that, but Eben is saying I can't say how many.

me : Since you keep saying that it is a beta board.. Then you have sold over 200k of beta board ..

About the usage of the Raspberry Pi :

Q1 8: A majority of Raspberry Pi owners / buyers seem to be doing this to get a very cheap 1 080p
capable media player rather than a programming / experimenting computer that the Raspberry Pi was originally meant to be. What are your feelings about this?

Eben: It's great news.We're not some bunch of use-case fascists . We don't care what people do with it as long as people do *stuff* with it. You've got to remember that our goal for the UK is to get 1 000 new CS students per year.
That's a really modest goal...

Liz: It doesn't matter if most of them end up as media players.[...] it's all good for the project. We're already seeing a lot of people on Twitter saying "I saw one at my friend's house; I'm going to order one." It's exactly what we were hoping for.

Q2: What is your attitude towards Commercial Pi Projects? Some projects might get very large, and need a large quantity of Pi's. I've searched the forum, but haven't found conclusive proof that you approve of commercial projects?

Liz: We totally approve of them.

Eben: More than that; we think they're completely vital to the future success of Raspberry Pi. People shouldn't think that just because we're a charity we're not in favour of people making money.
You should totally quote Peter Mandelson. "I am intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich."
MagPi: [Note - following this interview, the order limits have been lifted and multiple Raspberry
Pis can now be ordered.]

Conclusion ( this time really I won t come back on that .. I 'm really busy too and I spent too much time on this already ) :

However noble is the goal, does it justify the means ?

Not clearly advertising this board to home consumers as a beta would be simply dishonest and misleading.
NOTE: I know lots of people with the skill set you are after. However, I won't contact them until the aim of the project is clarified and also what is the impact of Broadcom as an employer on it ( Jamesh, whoever is involved in this and working for broadcom is still bound by contract to broadcom's trade secrecy).

I really have NO IDEA what point you are trying to make. Does it have anything to do with USB?

As for reading the whole thread...sorry, I'm pretty sure it's not our fault if you don't have time to read through a thread on a subject you are obviously interested in. Fortunately Gordon DID have some spare time to write a summary, so you have the information you wanted without having to do any research.

If you know people who do have the required skills set, and there are very few of them about with the very sxpecific set required, rather than hold that information to ransom until some arbitrary criteria of yours is fulfilled, please pass on the details of this thread to them -they may be able to help right now. So far Gordon has had ZERO volunteers, so any help on the technical side is to be welcomed. Note, the driver is OSS, so there are no 'trade secrets' to worry about at that level. Access to the verilog of course would not be possible, but Gordon is there for that sort of thing.