diff options
author | Oliver Neukum <oneukum@suse.com> | 2016-10-20 15:15:00 +0200 |
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committer | Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> | 2016-10-27 17:01:25 -0600 |
commit | 2797cd03f5cca4d9fb2875c9f9c995737ce73469 (patch) | |
tree | 8ca34b1d9df09f95f59087566ed562519ab258e8 | |
parent | fdd91a3dfadfa73bbb54702f1e951e7c17a507d6 (diff) | |
download | linux-2797cd03f5cca4d9fb2875c9f9c995737ce73469.tar.bz2 |
USB: update intro of documentation
It does no good to mention The 2.4 kernel series and neglect
USB 3.x and XHCI. Also with type C and micro/mini USB we better
not talk about the shape of connectors.
Signed-off-by: Oliver Neukum <oneukum@suse.com>
Acked-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/DocBook/usb.tmpl | 68 |
1 files changed, 30 insertions, 38 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/DocBook/usb.tmpl b/Documentation/DocBook/usb.tmpl index bc776be0f19c..8ec4d595b218 100644 --- a/Documentation/DocBook/usb.tmpl +++ b/Documentation/DocBook/usb.tmpl @@ -47,39 +47,24 @@ root (the system's master), hubs as interior nodes, and peripherals as leaves (and slaves). Modern PCs support several such trees of USB devices, usually - one USB 2.0 tree (480 Mbit/sec each) with - a few USB 1.1 trees (12 Mbit/sec each) that are used when you - connect a USB 1.1 device directly to the machine's "root hub". + a few USB 3.0 (5 GBit/s) or USB 3.1 (10 GBit/s) and some legacy + USB 2.0 (480 MBit/s) busses just in case. </para> <para>That master/slave asymmetry was designed-in for a number of reasons, one being ease of use. It is not physically possible to - assemble (legal) USB cables incorrectly: all upstream "to the host" - connectors are the rectangular type (matching the sockets on - root hubs), and all downstream connectors are the squarish type + mistake upstream and downstream or it does not matter with a type C + plug (or they are built into the peripheral). Also, the host software doesn't need to deal with distributed auto-configuration since the pre-designated master node manages all that. - And finally, at the electrical level, bus protocol overhead is reduced by - eliminating arbitration and moving scheduling into the host software. - </para> - - <para>USB 1.0 was announced in January 1996 and was revised - as USB 1.1 (with improvements in hub specification and - support for interrupt-out transfers) in September 1998. - USB 2.0 was released in April 2000, adding high-speed - transfers and transaction-translating hubs (used for USB 1.1 - and 1.0 backward compatibility). </para> <para>Kernel developers added USB support to Linux early in the 2.2 kernel - series, shortly before 2.3 development forked. Updates from 2.3 were - regularly folded back into 2.2 releases, which improved reliability and - brought <filename>/sbin/hotplug</filename> support as well more drivers. - Such improvements were continued in the 2.5 kernel series, where they added - USB 2.0 support, improved performance, and made the host controller drivers - (HCDs) more consistent. They also simplified the API (to make bugs less - likely) and added internal "kerneldoc" documentation. + series and have been developing it further since then. Besides support + for each new generation of USB, various host controllers gained support, + new drivers for peripherals have been added and advanced features for latency + measurement and improved power management introduced. </para> <para>Linux can run inside USB devices as well as on @@ -121,12 +106,17 @@ <listitem><para>The device description model includes one or more "configurations" per device, only one of which is active at a time. - Devices that are capable of high-speed operation must also support - full-speed configurations, along with a way to ask about the - "other speed" configurations which might be used. + Devices are supposed to be capable of operating at lower than their top + speeds and may provide a BOS descriptor showing the lowest speed they + remain fully operational at. + </para></listitem> + + <listitem><para>From USB 3.0 on configurations have one or more "functions", which + provide a common functionality and are grouped together for purposes + of power management. </para></listitem> - <listitem><para>Configurations have one or more "interfaces", each + <listitem><para>Configurations or functions have one or more "interfaces", each of which may have "alternate settings". Interfaces may be standardized by USB "Class" specifications, or may be specific to a vendor or device.</para> @@ -135,7 +125,7 @@ Think of them as "interface drivers", though you may not see many devices where the distinction is important. <emphasis>Most USB devices are simple, with only one configuration, - one interface, and one alternate setting.</emphasis> + one function, one interface, and one alternate setting.</emphasis> </para></listitem> <listitem><para>Interfaces have one or more "endpoints", each of @@ -161,26 +151,25 @@ <para>Accordingly, the USB Core API exposed to device drivers covers quite a lot of territory. You'll probably need to consult - the USB 2.0 specification, available online from www.usb.org at + the USB 3.0 specification, available online from www.usb.org at no cost, as well as class or device specifications. </para> <para>The only host-side drivers that actually touch hardware (reading/writing registers, handling IRQs, and so on) are the HCDs. In theory, all HCDs provide the same functionality through the same - API. In practice, that's becoming more true on the 2.5 kernels, + API. In practice, that's becoming mostly true, but there are still differences that crop up especially with - fault handling. Different controllers don't necessarily report + fault handling on the less common controllers. + Different controllers don't necessarily report the same aspects of failures, and recovery from faults (including software-induced ones like unlinking an URB) isn't yet fully consistent. Device driver authors should make a point of doing disconnect testing (while the device is active) with each different host controller driver, to make sure drivers don't have bugs of - their own as well as to make sure they aren't relying on some + thei1r own as well as to make sure they aren't relying on some HCD-specific behavior. - (You will need external USB 1.1 and/or - USB 2.0 hubs to perform all those tests.) </para> </chapter> @@ -216,7 +205,7 @@ <para>There are two basic I/O models in the USB API. The most elemental one is asynchronous: drivers submit requests in the form of an URB, and the URB's completion callback - handle the next step. + handles the next step. All USB transfer types support that model, although there are special cases for control URBs (which always have setup and status stages, but may not have a data stage) and @@ -252,7 +241,7 @@ <para>These APIs are only for use by host controller drivers, most of which implement standard register interfaces such as - EHCI, OHCI, or UHCI. + XHCI, EHCI, OHCI, or UHCI. UHCI was one of the first interfaces, designed by Intel and also used by VIA; it doesn't do much in hardware. OHCI was designed later, to have the hardware do more work @@ -260,13 +249,16 @@ EHCI was designed with USB 2.0; its design has features that resemble OHCI (hardware does much more work) as well as UHCI (some parts of ISO support, TD list processing). + XHCI was designed with USB 3.0. It continues to shift support + for functionality into hardware. </para> <para>There are host controllers other than the "big three", although most PCI based controllers (and a few non-PCI based ones) use one of those interfaces. Not all host controllers use DMA; some use PIO, and there - is also a simulator. + is also a simulator and a virtual host controller to pipe + USB over the network. </para> <para>The same basic APIs are available to drivers for all @@ -275,7 +267,7 @@ <structname>struct usb_bus</structname> is a rather thin layer that became available in the 2.2 kernels, while <structname>struct usb_hcd</structname> is a more featureful - layer (available in later 2.4 kernels and in 2.5) that + layer that lets HCDs share common code, to shrink driver size and significantly reduce hcd-specific behaviors. </para> |