On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:10:02AM -0700, Greg KH wrote: > On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 04:29:16PM -0700, Sarah Sharp wrote: > > This switchover mechanism is there to support users who do a custom > > install of certain non-Linux operating systems that don't have official > > USB 3.0 support. By default, the ports are under EHCI, SuperSpeed > > terminations are off, and USB 3.0 devices will show up under the EHCI > > controller at reduced speeds. (This was more palatable for the marketing > > folks than having completely dead USB 3.0 ports if no xHCI drivers are > > available.) Users should be able to turn on xHCI by default through a > > BIOS option, but users are happiest when they don't have to change random > > BIOS settings. > > I can't frickin belive this. > > Well, I guess I can, but that's just so horrible I really can't express > how messed up this is. I'm not fond of it either (understatement of the week), but they were already in the middle of architecting this solution by the time I even heard about it. Don't shoot the messenger? > And the USB-IF gives us MAJOR crap[1] about Linux developers > participating in the specification work, yet other operating systems > require horrible hardware hacks like this in order just to have them to > work with their platforms. > > [1] They just kicked some Linux kernel developers out of a working group > for a new USB device specification because they don't trust us to abide > by the legal agreements we signed. If I was a paranoid person, I would > think that some company was out to get us because we showed them up > again with USB support first-to-market. I don't think that's related to this patch, but yeah, I'm not happy about the USB-IF thing either. However, the USB-IF really only wants employees or hired consultants of USB-IF member companies to participate, and those people really weren't Linux Foundation employees. It's messed up, but that's how they want to make money. :( I really wish it had worked out, because Linux developers do need to have a say in the specification process. I'm just not sure if it's worth trying anymore. :-/ > What's the time frame on seeing hardware like this around? Do we need > to get this into .40/3.0.0 or can it wait for the next merge window. I don't think I'm allowed to talk about the hardware time frame in a public forum. Ask Keve privately? But Intel did mention at IDF that we're shipping Ivy Bridge systems with USB 3.0 support in 2012, so back calculate from known Linux OSV schedules... You'll notice the graphics folks did a big push to get basic support for Panther Point in 2.6.40. I really did want to push these patches in time for 2.6.40, but only got approval to ship them last Thursday. At that point, I saw the merge window was opening, and knew that I wouldn't get feedback in time to make it in, especially since I hadn't had time to clean them up due to *way* too many meetings trying to get the approval to ship. Blame me, I guess. I am not pleased about the number of hoops I had to jump through to get these out, and I am extremely pissed off that this isn't even the full patchset for basic support. (I'm still waiting on approval to even start coding one particular patch that's really... disappointing.) If Panther Point USB 3.0 support doesn't make it into 2.6.40 because I wasn't given approval to push the patches sooner, I would completely understand. Sarah Sharp -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-usb" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
