[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[Junior]

Hi All,
Just an inquiry on the USB host support.
I've been thinking about ading USB host support to my u-boot port but I'm not
sure what current infrastructure is there to make this painless.
Is there a generic interface for this, or is this done on a platform by platform basis?

My motive here is to be able to detect a usb memory stick and be able to read and write to
to it. Have anyone been suscessfull in doing this? This would be done on an ARM9 platform.

Thanks,
--Jr.

[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[Markus Klotzbücher]

Junior,

Junior <ejr@inbox.com> writes:

> Just an inquiry on the USB host support.
> I've been thinking about ading USB host support to my u-boot port but I'm not
> sure what current infrastructure is there to make this painless.
> Is there a generic interface for this, or is this done on a platform
> by platform basis?

The higher level interfaces are all in place and there are drivers for
different controllers such as OHCI and UHCI. Some of these controller
drivers are still board dependant, but we're in the progress of merging
them together into one generic driver. If you happen to have an OHCI
Controller, don't miss "doc/README.generic_usb_ohci".

> My motive here is to be able to detect a usb memory stick and be able
> to read and write to to it. Have anyone been suscessfull in doing
> this? This would be done on an ARM9 platform.

Writing is not supported so far, but reading works fine on a number of
architectures and boards.

Best regards

Markus Klotzbuecher

--
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: +49-8142-66989-0 Fax: +49-8142-66989-80  Email: office at denx.de

[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[Markus Klotzbücher]

Dear David,

Please keep the list on CC:

David.Saada at ecitele.com writes:

>> The higher level interfaces are all in place and there are drivers for
>> different controllers such as OHCI and UHCI. Some of these controller
>> drivers are still board dependant, but we're in the progress of merging
>> them together into one generic driver. If you happen to have an OHCI
>> Controller, don't miss "doc/README.generic_usb_ohci".
> Is there a plan to support EHCI as well?

There are already boards supporting USB 2.0. Grep for "USB_2_0_DEVICE".

>> Writing is not supported so far, but reading works fine on a number of
>> architectures and boards.
>> 
> Do you plan to support writing as well? 

No, not at the moment. USB is typically used for updating components of
the system for which reading files is sufficient. What do you need
support for writing for?

Viele Gr??e / Best regards

Markus Klotzb?cher

--
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: +49-8142-66989-0 Fax: +49-8142-66989-80  Email: office at denx.de

[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[David Saada]

> Dear David,
> 
> Please keep the list on CC:
Sorry. Wrong reply button...

> >> The higher level interfaces are all in place and there are drivers for
> >> different controllers such as OHCI and UHCI. Some of these controller
> >> drivers are still board dependant, but we're in the progress of merging
> >> them together into one generic driver. If you happen to have an OHCI
> >> Controller, don't miss "doc/README.generic_usb_ohci".
> > Is there a plan to support EHCI as well?
> 
> There are already boards supporting USB 2.0. Grep for "USB_2_0_DEVICE".
Thanks. Will do.

> 
> >> Writing is not supported so far, but reading works fine on a number of
> >> architectures and boards.
> >>
> > Do you plan to support writing as well?
> 
> No, not at the moment. USB is typically used for updating components of
> the system for which reading files is sufficient. What do you need
> support for writing for?
Let me elaborate a bit: We're thinking of having a kind of a "Disk on key"
device as our primary non volatile storage. The Linux software image will be
on this device, so we'll need to boot from it as well. As this is an MPC85xx
based board, having no embedded USB controller, we'll also need an external
PCI to USB 2.0 host controller. Writing may be needed as in our current boot
process the boot application writes some temporary files on the HD (and it's
also needed at development stage, when there is no image on the disk).
I basically would like to know how painful it is to have all this ticking
with the current u-boot support.

Best regards,
David.

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[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <11273166.post@talk.nabble.com> you wrote:
> 
> Let me elaborate a bit: We're thinking of having a kind of a "Disk on key"
> device as our primary non volatile storage. The Linux software image will be
> on this device, so we'll need to boot from it as well. As this is an MPC85xx
> based board, having no embedded USB controller, we'll also need an external
> PCI to USB 2.0 host controller. Writing may be needed as in our current boot
> process the boot application writes some temporary files on the HD (and it's
> also needed at development stage, when there is no image on the disk).

It is not needed. Boot Linux over Ethernet, and use the running Linux
system to write the files.

> I basically would like to know how painful it is to have all this ticking
> with the current u-boot support.

It *is* painful, as you would have to add write support both  to  the
USB  drivers  (including re-testing on a lot of boards) *plus* to the
file system drivers (including re-testing on a lot of boards).

It's simply not worth the effort. U-Boot is a boot loader, and if you
need the services of a typical OS (like  full  file  system  support)
then  you  should  just boot an OS - that's what U-Bootis really good
in.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on.
	-- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9

[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[David Saada]

> >> The higher level interfaces are all in place and there are drivers for
> >> different controllers such as OHCI and UHCI. Some of these controller
> >> drivers are still board dependant, but we're in the progress of merging
> >> them together into one generic driver. If you happen to have an OHCI
> >> Controller, don't miss "doc/README.generic_usb_ohci".
> > Is there a plan to support EHCI as well?
> 
> There are already boards supporting USB 2.0. Grep for "USB_2_0_DEVICE".
Marcus - of what I've seen (in the USB tree), the USB_2_0 support is for a
CPU specific (4xx) EHCI controller. My question was about a generic EHCI
controller driver (like the OHCI one), as we plan to use a PCI based USB
host controller. I guess we can operate it in the OHCI mode at boot stage
and get a slower boot if generic EHCI support is not planned in the near
future.

Best regards,
David.

-- 
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/USB-Host-support-tf3956288.html#a11284558
Sent from the Uboot - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[Junior]

> Junior <ejr@inbox.com> writes:
> 
>> Just an inquiry on the USB host support.
>> I've been thinking about ading USB host support to my u-boot port but
>> I'm not
>> sure what current infrastructure is there to make this painless.
>> Is there a generic interface for this, or is this done on a platform
>> by platform basis?
> 
> The higher level interfaces are all in place and there are drivers for
> different controllers such as OHCI and UHCI. Some of these controller
> drivers are still board dependant, but we're in the progress of merging
> them together into one generic driver. If you happen to have an OHCI
> Controller, don't miss "doc/README.generic_usb_ohci".


Hi Markus,
I could not find this README document in any source and I just pulled the git source.
Any idea where it is?



>> My motive here is to be able to detect a usb memory stick and be able
>> to read and write to to it. Have anyone been suscessfull in doing
>> this? This would be done on an ARM9 platform.
> 
> Writing is not supported so far, but reading works fine on a number of
> architectures and boards.

reading is really what I'm primary looking for.

Thanks,
--Jr.

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[U-Boot-Users] USB Host support

[Detlev Zundel]

Hi Junior,

>>> Just an inquiry on the USB host support.
>>> I've been thinking about ading USB host support to my u-boot port but
>>> I'm not
>>> sure what current infrastructure is there to make this painless.
>>> Is there a generic interface for this, or is this done on a platform
>>> by platform basis?
>> 
>> The higher level interfaces are all in place and there are drivers for
>> different controllers such as OHCI and UHCI. Some of these controller
>> drivers are still board dependant, but we're in the progress of merging
>> them together into one generic driver. If you happen to have an OHCI
>> Controller, don't miss "doc/README.generic_usb_ohci".
>
>
> Hi Markus,
> I could not find this README document in any source and I just pulled the git source.
> Any idea where it is?

This is in Markus' u-boot-usb custodian[1] repository and not yet
merged into mainline.  You can check out an online version here[2].

Cheers
  Detlev

[1] http://www.denx.de/wiki/UBoot/Custodians
[2] http://www.denx.de/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=u-boot/u-boot-usb.git;a=blob;f=doc/README.generic_usb_ohci;h=c343dfdf90af41c74b738e214703d03564361ae4;hb=9b7464a2c88614e1061f509c48930a3d240d1a35

-- 
While  the list of  different methods is not  endless, it is certainly
pretty long, with new ones being dreamed up all the time. Fortunately,
space limitations prevent us from looking at all of them.
                                            -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
--
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,      MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich,  Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-40 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: dzu at denx.de