Hello all,
Edijus from #reactos has just tried ReactOS on his system, but the boot process got stuck at "usbdriver.sys". When reading his notice, I was wondering why we still include this ancient driver in every ReactOS build. As far as I know ...
* it has never worked for us * it is incomplete and not well-tested * it has obvious code bugs (e.g. just look in ehci.c:3465 how it enumerates more PCI devices and functions than possible, consequently enumerating the first function twice due to bitshifts) * better USB work by Johannes and Michael is progressing well
Although it might be useful as a testcase for the legacy HAL functions (like HalAssignSlotResources), it should still be removed from the build process for now.
If there are no objections, I'll do this change on the weekend.
- Colin
This reminds me a funny argument, when I proposed arwinss saying it's better, easier to develop, and not so buggy. I was said: "hey, people put years of work into existing win32k, why did you come up with a new one?! And those people are going to feel offended".
Of course this driver is far from being good, however it works in some configurations (does it work for anyone besides me?), and I put a lot of hours into work on improving it and fixing these kind of bugs, adding new features, implementing keyboard and mouse support, and almost had the USB storage devices support.
I commented your list just for clarity sake, to respect those 92 commits (not only mine) which made it into that driver. Feel free to remove this driver, either from boot or from build or even from the tree, because: a) I don't have time for coding it b) there is no point in coding it now because janderwald's one should be improved instead
WBR, Aleksey.
On Jun 15, 2011, at 6:50 PM, Colin Finck wrote:
Hello all,
Edijus from #reactos has just tried ReactOS on his system, but the boot process got stuck at "usbdriver.sys". When reading his notice, I was wondering why we still include this ancient driver in every ReactOS build. As far as I know ...
- it has never worked for us
* for you
- it is incomplete and not well-tested
* complete enough to the point of supporting usb keyboards, mice (both tested), and potentially usb storage (had no time to finish).
- it has obvious code bugs (e.g. just look in ehci.c:3465 how it enumerates more PCI devices and functions than possible, consequently enumerating the first function twice due to bitshifts)
* it had 1000 of these, many of them were fixed by me and other devs in the process.
- better USB work by Johannes and Michael is progressing well
Absolutely, after his work is ready this one is unnecessary.
Although it might be useful as a testcase for the legacy HAL functions (like HalAssignSlotResources), it should still be removed from the build process for now.
If there are no objections, I'll do this change on the weekend.
- Colin
Aleksey Bragin aleksey@reactos.org wrote:
- it is incomplete and not well-tested
- complete enough to the point of supporting usb keyboards, mice (both
tested), and potentially usb storage (had no time to finish).
Then it was advertised very badly. At least there has been no PowerPoint presentation for everybody to look up - unlike Arwinss ;-)
Honestly, when a ReactOS developer was asked about USB, the answer was always something like "nobody is currently working on it" or "it will come at a later stage". For me, this driver always looked like a skeleton or template for a better USB support, not something that shall be usable for ROS. In fact, I'm surprised that I haven't been thinking about it earlier given that the driver is included in every ReactOS build for years.
Of course, these points should be moot now that a real USB stack is approaching. But my comments may still serve as hints for others. Developers, be glad about your work and spread the word when milestones like this are reached with so visible benefits for the users!
- Colin
On Jun 16, 2011, at 1:27 AM, Colin Finck wrote:
Aleksey Bragin aleksey@reactos.org wrote:
- it is incomplete and not well-tested
- complete enough to the point of supporting usb keyboards, mice
(both tested), and potentially usb storage (had no time to finish).
Then it was advertised very badly. At least there has been no PowerPoint presentation for everybody to look up - unlike Arwinss ;-)
Agreed, we need to use more of Victor's PR skills :-)
Seriously, great progress of a real PnP USB stack makes this old driver look like a used 20 years old car compared to a shiny new Mercedes. Yes, we can get from point A to point B using both of those, but majority will prefer a newer one :)
WBR, Aleksey.
-
Aleksey Bragin -
Colin Finck