Author Topic: USB 3  (Read 5566 times)

ivan

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USB 3
« on: May 07, 2020, 07:57:32 pm »
A question for those on the elite list of testers.

Does the USB 3 driver work at boot time?  I have a couple of KVM switches that work with my Linux boxes but will not work with any of the ArcaOS units with a USB 2 addin card although they will work as stand alone boxes.

A secondary question, can a usb mouse and keyboard work through one USB 3 port?  It works with a couple of my ITX boxes that have real USB 2 ports.

Andreas Schnellbacher

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Re: USB 3
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2020, 09:13:06 pm »
I didn't have a chance to test this, as yet. Please ask Lewis directly and ask him for addition to the testers list, too. I myself could write my impression, but as a member, I was told not to do that.

The USB 3 ports come with two interfaces, as David explained on WS, one for USB 2 devices and one for USB 3 devices. So, yes, USB 2 (and 1.1) devices generally work at USB 3 ports.





Doug Bissett

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Re: USB 3
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2020, 11:55:33 pm »
Quote
Does the USB 3 driver work at boot time?

The USB drivers (all of them) don't work, until near the end of boot.

However, if the USB (any type) controller is operated by the BIOS (or whatever), they will work until the USB drivers are loaded, then, they won't work until USB has finished initializing (near the end of boot). There is nothing new about that, it is the way it has always been in OS/2.

Mouse, and keyboard work with the USB 3 drivers (even USB 1.0 devices work), after they finish initializing. There is a problem (with all OS/2 USB drivers), where you cannot respond to a "press enter" (or the like), before USB drivers finish initializing. Again, this is as it has always been. Whether that can be fixed, or not, remains to be seen. The answer is to use a PS/2 connected keyboard, but many new (and some not so new) machines seem to have forgotten to include a PS/2 connector (a PS/2 to USB adapter doesn't count, that is still USB). Something else for somebody to figure out.

Lars

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Re: USB 3
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2020, 04:21:21 pm »
I can only say for my own USB driver set but this should also hold true for the AN USB drivers:
during the boot up phase (that is, while the screen is still in text mode), there is a point in time when the swap over between legacy USB (USB devices are emulated as PS/2 devices) and natively supported USB (meaning, the OS/2 host controller drivers have loaded and connected to USBD.SYS and the USB keyboard driver/HID driver has also connected to USBD.SYS) happens.

Anyone can test: during boot, hit Alt-F1 to get the selection screen, hit F2 to open a commandline (and not boot to the desktop).
When you now type something with your USB keyboard, there will be a point in time where you can no longer type until USB is finally initialized after which you can continue typing. At least this is what happens on my system.

The gap for the switchover is fairly short. Just 1 to 2 seconds which does not matter in practice.

All of this requires that your system supports legacy USB. I fear that many new Mobos no longer support this as they boot with UEFI which comes with its own USB drivers (basically, the replacement for the legacy USB solution).

ivan

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Re: USB 3
« Reply #4 on: May 08, 2020, 10:44:53 pm »
Thank you all for the information.

It would appear that successful recognition of USB 3 ports during boot is impossible without some radical reworking of the OS/2 boot procedure and, maybe, hacking of the os2krnl.

I will have to dig around in the motherboard hardware and bios firmware to see if I can get any more information (it will give me something to do during lockdown since at my age I'm not supposed to be outside). 

Dave Yeo

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Re: USB 3
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2020, 12:52:19 am »
Seems to me that USB3 boot is no more broken then USB2 boot, namely there is a period of time where the keyboard (and mouse) don't work. I came across this recently when I updated my computer by moving the hard drives over, boot ended  loading the network drivers due to having gone from realtek to intel with the "press enter to continue" message and enter not working so I had to power off, boot the AOS USB stick, go into the maintenance shell and rem the offending line out of the config.sys. Then boot worked and I could install the correct driver.
As Lars said, there's just a short period when the USB drivers (probably USB Keyboard) haven't initialized.
As Andreas said, you really should be asking Louis about this stuff and asking if you can get access to a beta build of the USB3 drivers, as it wouldn't hurt to have someone with Ryzon machines testing.

Are you really not allowed to go outside for a walk or such while maintaining social distancing? Or do you just live somewhere where it is hard to get outside due to shared lifts or such? The wife has been walking to the mailbox most days, about 5km round trip, and talks to the neighbours while standing on opposite sides of the road. Our road is pretty dead traffic wise.

ivan

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Re: USB 3
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2020, 01:11:09 am »
Hi Dave,

To answer your last question, since I'm 80 I am supposed to stay at home here in France.  To go out we have to fill in a form each time stating name, date of birth, reason for being outside plus a few other things, you get a fine if you don't have one.  The last time I went out to get food I was advised to say I was only 70 on the form.  It is sheer stupidity as far as I'm concerned.

Dave Yeo

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Re: USB 3
« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2020, 04:17:59 am »
Hi Ivan, sure a lot of differences in how different jurisdictions are implementing lock downs.

Remy

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Re: USB 3
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2020, 01:35:01 pm »
Seems to me that USB3 boot is no more broken then USB2 boot, namely there is a period of time where the keyboard (and mouse) don't work. I came across this recently when I updated my computer by moving the hard drives over, boot ended  loading the network drivers due to having gone from realtek to intel with the "press enter to continue" message and enter not working so I had to power off, boot the AOS USB stick, go into the maintenance shell and rem the offending line out of the config.sys. Then boot worked and I could install the correct driver.
As Lars said, there's just a short period when the USB drivers (probably USB Keyboard) haven't initialized.
As Andreas said, you really should be asking Louis about this stuff and asking if you can get access to a beta build of the USB3 drivers, as it wouldn't hurt to have someone with Ryzon machines testing.

Are you really not allowed to go outside for a walk or such while maintaining social distancing? Or do you just live somewhere where it is hard to get outside due to shared lifts or such? The wife has been walking to the mailbox most days, about 5km round trip, and talks to the neighbours while standing on opposite sides of the road. Our road is pretty dead traffic wise.

Hi Dave,

Reading you keyboard and mouse issue at boot itme, this is what I have each time I power off windows and boot into ArcaOS. To prevent this, I have to go into bios, do exit and reboot and them, no issue...  (but, I never have to reboot nor this kind of problem when last booted OS was ArcaOS... only when it was windows).