Re: Is libusb dead?

On Mon, Apr 16, 2007 at 06:38:15PM -0400, Adam Kropelin wrote:
> Sarah Bailey wrote:
> >On Tue, Apr 03, 2007 at 10:58:06AM -0400, Mike Panetta wrote:
> >>I just went to the sourceforge page to see if there was a newer 
> >>version
> >>supporting asynch io for more efficient bulk xfers on high speed
> >>devices, but it looks like there has not been any development in over 
> >>a
> >>year, even in CVS.  Is the project dead?  Is there now a different 
> >>way
> >>to do USB drivers from user-space?
> >
> >There will be a new way to write USB drivers from userspace in a 
> >couple
> >months.  usbfs is slowly being replaced by a new usb file system,
> >usbfs2.  Eventually, user-space USB drivers will just use usbfs2, and
> >libusb won't be needed anymore.
> 
> I disagree. Either you misunderstand libusb or I misunderstand usbfs2. I 
> suspect the former ;)
> 
> As I understand it, usbfs2 is a "simpler" API than the current usbfs.

Simplier, and a little better designed than usbfs.  It represents
endpoints as separate files, so the program can issue read and write
calls rather than messing with ioctls.

> That's nice, but the complexity of usbfs is not the only reason libusb 
> exists. In fact I'd argue  it's not even the most important reason. What 
> *is* the most important reason? Cross-platform compatibility.

Yes, libusb is important for cross-platform compatibility.  libusb could
be reworked to use usbfs2.  However, it seems like an unnecessary abstraction
layer if you just want to write a userspace Linux USB driver (which is
what I thought Mike was asking about).

Sarah

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