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I actually really appreciate USB devices that masquerade as a storage device to provide their own drivers. I suppose in this day and age the "right" thing to d

I actually really appreciate USB devices that masquerade as a storage device to provide their own drivers. I suppose in this day and age the "right" thing to do is to upload a bunch of stuff to microsoft servers so that it downloads whatever is needed upon getting plugged in, but I've observed enough stuff needing manually installed drivers to know that this isn't as apparently easy as it may appear to be. (For example, I very often need to download vendor-specific ADB drivers) Anyways, I think it's clever for peripherals to help you bootstrap, and having the drivers baked into the device makes things a little easier instead of trying to find a canonical download source.

necovek 2y ago
I appreciate them working out-of-the-box on Linux even more. And they mostly do, with Linux being the best PnP (Plug'n'Play — remember that with Windows 95? :) OS today. But multiple modes of operation really made it harder for to configure devices like those 4G/LTE USB dongles: they will either present as USB storage, or one type of serial device or a CDC-ACM modem device (or something of the sort), requiring a combination of the tools + vendor-specific AT commands to switch it into the right mode. Ugh, just get me back those simple devices that do the right thing OOB.
- dylan604 2y ago
  > (Plug'n'Play — remember that I remember it as Plug-n-Pray
  - teaearlgraycold 2y ago
    I only know that phrase thanks to the Computer Man song that I’ve seen on YouTube.
- ChocolateGod 2y ago
  > with Linux being the best PnP as long as it isn't wireless or bluetooth
  - ruszki 2y ago
    or large high DPI monitor
    - necovek 2y ago
      What's the issue you have with high DPI monitors? I've used 3200x1800 14" screens way back (on Fujitsu U904 when that came out: I found a review from 2014 online), 4k 24" Dell when it still required two DP cables for 60Hz, and more recently 4k 14" screens on X1 Carbon: while you need to configure scaling (I prefer 125% or 150% for UI elements, and fonts further increased by a factor of 1.4x), most programs work well with that (including non-native UI peograms like Firefox, LibreOffice or even Emacs). For a long while there was an issue with multiple monitors which you want to configure with different settings: you couldn't. I believe that is also fixed today with Wayland but I mostly stick to a single monitor anyway.
      - ruszki 2y ago
        Programs? I meant kernel and drivers. I don’t even need to open an app. My ASUS laptop with a 4090 steadily fails with an LG 40WP95XP with anything else than 100% DPI. My previous ASUS N552VW failed quite often on kernel level because it couldn’t handle the built in 960M, and it definitely couldn’t handle at all my older ultra wide monitor (I don’t remember anymore what was the model exactly).
        necovek 2y ago
        Please describe "failure": I've had a Sony Vaio Z with switchable Intel/Nvidia graphics in 2009 before Optimus (though that did require some tinkering), but had GTX 960 and GTX 970 (actually still do) in a couple of computers, along with an integrated Intel and AMD GPUs in a bunch of laptops. Note that kernel is totally unconcerned with DPI in general: it only cares about physical pixels and reports physical dimensions to apps — if scaling caused kernel level issues, it might be related to proprietary driver issue (they frequently lag in Nvidia's case). I never used ultrawides myself, but if the monitor did not report proper "timings" and available resolutions, you might have needed some manual tweaks.
qwezxcrty 2y ago
In this specific case it makes a bit more sense, as when you need to install a RJ45 dongle is likely when you don't have a network connection.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  While that's true, you'd also expect USB network devices to be standardized and have builtin drivers under all the main operating systems.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    That would be desirable but it does not happen in practice. All the USB network devices that I have ever used required specific drivers. Sometimes the drivers happened to be already bundled with the Linux kernel or with Windows, but frequently they were not.
    - franga2000 2y ago
      Where do you buy such things? Every USB Ethernet card I've used in the last 10 years was either RNDIS or some version of USB-CDC. They've worked out of the box on both Linux, Windows and some even Android.
      - adrian_b 2y ago
        If you start the configuration of the Linux kernel and you go to "Device Drivers", then to "USB Network Adapters", you will notice that there are close to 50 such device drivers. That should tell you that there are plenty of different USB Ethernet Adapters that you can find when buying one. Among those that I have encountered more frequently have been several kinds of Realtek, and of ASIX, and of Aquantia. Especially among the faster USB Ethernet adapters I doubt that there are many without custom drivers. Some people may not notice this, if they are using only fat Linux kernels, with all the possible device drivers being enabled and compiled, but if you use a streamlined kernel, e.g. for instant booting, you may need to add a device driver whenever you buy such an Ethernet adapter.
Suppafly 2y ago
>I actually really appreciate USB devices that masquerade as a storage device to provide their own drivers. I appreciate the ones that don't need their own drivers in the first places. Sure something needs special drivers but things like usb sticks and mice should just work using the default ones and let you get the updates from the internet if you want them.
- microtonal 2y ago
  usb sticks and mice And USB Ethernet, USB CDC-ECM/NCM has existed for a while and have drivers in common OSes. And yet we are plagued by USB Ethernet with custom drivers (some of which are not available for macOS on Apple Silicon). Of course, PCIe over Thunderbolt is even better.
  - judge2020 2y ago
    But can we achieve 10gig/2.5gig or even gigabit with that?
    - microtonal 2y ago
      Yes. With an NCM Belkin 2.5Gbe dongle, I get ~2300/2300 last time I checked.
IIsi50MHz 2y ago
So, rather like NuBus? IIRC, cards for early Macintoshes often had at least a basic driver in ROM, written in either Forth or 680x0 assembly code.

necovek 2y ago

I appreciate them working out-of-the-box on Linux even more. And they mostly do, with Linux being the best PnP (Plug'n'Play — remember that with Windows 95? :) OS today. But multiple modes of operation really made it harder for to configure devices like those 4G/LTE USB dongles: they will either present as USB storage, or one type of serial device or a CDC-ACM modem device (or something of the sort), requiring a combination of the tools + vendor-specific AT commands to switch it into the right mode. Ugh, just get me back those simple devices that do the right thing OOB.

dylan604 2y ago
> (Plug'n'Play — remember that I remember it as Plug-n-Pray
- teaearlgraycold 2y ago
  I only know that phrase thanks to the Computer Man song that I’ve seen on YouTube.
ChocolateGod 2y ago
> with Linux being the best PnP as long as it isn't wireless or bluetooth
- ruszki 2y ago
  or large high DPI monitor
  - necovek 2y ago
    What's the issue you have with high DPI monitors? I've used 3200x1800 14" screens way back (on Fujitsu U904 when that came out: I found a review from 2014 online), 4k 24" Dell when it still required two DP cables for 60Hz, and more recently 4k 14" screens on X1 Carbon: while you need to configure scaling (I prefer 125% or 150% for UI elements, and fonts further increased by a factor of 1.4x), most programs work well with that (including non-native UI peograms like Firefox, LibreOffice or even Emacs). For a long while there was an issue with multiple monitors which you want to configure with different settings: you couldn't. I believe that is also fixed today with Wayland but I mostly stick to a single monitor anyway.
    - ruszki 2y ago
      Programs? I meant kernel and drivers. I don’t even need to open an app. My ASUS laptop with a 4090 steadily fails with an LG 40WP95XP with anything else than 100% DPI. My previous ASUS N552VW failed quite often on kernel level because it couldn’t handle the built in 960M, and it definitely couldn’t handle at all my older ultra wide monitor (I don’t remember anymore what was the model exactly).
      - necovek 2y ago
        Please describe "failure": I've had a Sony Vaio Z with switchable Intel/Nvidia graphics in 2009 before Optimus (though that did require some tinkering), but had GTX 960 and GTX 970 (actually still do) in a couple of computers, along with an integrated Intel and AMD GPUs in a bunch of laptops. Note that kernel is totally unconcerned with DPI in general: it only cares about physical pixels and reports physical dimensions to apps — if scaling caused kernel level issues, it might be related to proprietary driver issue (they frequently lag in Nvidia's case). I never used ultrawides myself, but if the monitor did not report proper "timings" and available resolutions, you might have needed some manual tweaks.

qwezxcrty 2y ago

In this specific case it makes a bit more sense, as when you need to install a RJ45 dongle is likely when you don't have a network connection.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
While that's true, you'd also expect USB network devices to be standardized and have builtin drivers under all the main operating systems.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  That would be desirable but it does not happen in practice. All the USB network devices that I have ever used required specific drivers. Sometimes the drivers happened to be already bundled with the Linux kernel or with Windows, but frequently they were not.
  - franga2000 2y ago
    Where do you buy such things? Every USB Ethernet card I've used in the last 10 years was either RNDIS or some version of USB-CDC. They've worked out of the box on both Linux, Windows and some even Android.
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      If you start the configuration of the Linux kernel and you go to "Device Drivers", then to "USB Network Adapters", you will notice that there are close to 50 such device drivers. That should tell you that there are plenty of different USB Ethernet Adapters that you can find when buying one. Among those that I have encountered more frequently have been several kinds of Realtek, and of ASIX, and of Aquantia. Especially among the faster USB Ethernet adapters I doubt that there are many without custom drivers. Some people may not notice this, if they are using only fat Linux kernels, with all the possible device drivers being enabled and compiled, but if you use a streamlined kernel, e.g. for instant booting, you may need to add a device driver whenever you buy such an Ethernet adapter.

Suppafly 2y ago

>I actually really appreciate USB devices that masquerade as a storage device to provide their own drivers. I appreciate the ones that don't need their own drivers in the first places. Sure something needs special drivers but things like usb sticks and mice should just work using the default ones and let you get the updates from the internet if you want them.

microtonal 2y ago
usb sticks and mice And USB Ethernet, USB CDC-ECM/NCM has existed for a while and have drivers in common OSes. And yet we are plagued by USB Ethernet with custom drivers (some of which are not available for macOS on Apple Silicon). Of course, PCIe over Thunderbolt is even better.
- judge2020 2y ago
  But can we achieve 10gig/2.5gig or even gigabit with that?
  - microtonal 2y ago
    Yes. With an NCM Belkin 2.5Gbe dongle, I get ~2300/2300 last time I checked.

IIsi50MHz 2y ago

So, rather like NuBus? IIRC, cards for early Macintoshes often had at least a basic driver in ROM, written in either Forth or 680x0 assembly code.