Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 16:25:58 +0200 From: Marc Fonvieille <blackend@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Ross Lippert <ripper@eskimo.com> Cc: trhodes@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: docs/40609: Add information about vchans to sound chapter in handbook Message-ID: <20020716162558.A27296@abigail.blackend.org> In-Reply-To: <200207161242.FAA04803@eskimo.com>; from ripper@eskimo.com on Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 05:42:25AM -0700 References: <20020716114833.A26739@abigail.blackend.org> <200207161242.FAA04803@eskimo.com>
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On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 05:42:25AM -0700, Ross Lippert wrote: [...] > USB is an interface? That's fairly narrow-minded. You can have a USB > scanner, a USB PDA, a USB cuecat, a USB camera, a USB creative nomad, > and other things no one has thought of yet, but people are developing. > SCSI is an interface too, but people pretty much make disks, printers, > and scanners for it. USB, right now, is where all the new toys live. > Granted, getting these gadgets to work is not a USB interface issue, > but I'll bet there are hangups here which these things have in common. > When i go to a "computer supermarket", i don't see "USB devices", "PCI devices", i just see "Scanners & digital cams", "Storage" etc... From an user point of view, USB is just an interface nothing more, the user of an USB mouse just cares about the mouse behavior not about the interface type; and if you give him the same mouse but using PS/2, for him it will remain a mouse. And to pick some examples you gave, for PDAs, cameras etc... USB is just an interface to talk with a computer, it could be anything else (serial, irda, firewire...), and that interface is not the fundamental feature of the device. Concerning the use of USB devices, after adding the USB support to the kernel, i don't see many things in common between my pendrive and my webcam, and in the same way you can also try to find things in common between a PCI TV Card and a PCI Modem. The problems will be different between these devices. Doing a classification based on interfaces will lead, again, to problems: for example, for scanners if there is a chapter in the USB part, it means that for scsi ones another chapter will be needed? And what about Firewire? Well a chapter about scanners covering all supported types seems really a better choice. Let me give a last example: when someone wants to buy a scanner, the person is not going to tell the vendor "I want an usb scanner", most of time it will be "I want a scanner to do that..." and then the person will ask "but that model will run with my computer?". How the person will search in the handbook? I'm quite sure mostly persons will look for "Scanners", if "Scanners" does not exists, they will look for "Multimedia", but i doubt many persons will think about a type of interface. The Handbook should in, my opinion, answer to the user in that way: scanners-->overview-->"locating the device" and configuration-->use of apps that is the way used in current sound chapter. However, it's just my opinion, i will (try :) ) to stop that talk there. Marc To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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