1 (edited by wkearney99 2008-06-12 15:14:49)

Topic: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

I've read the USB200M from Linksys and the TrendNet TU-Et100C are two wired ethernet devices known to work with the chumby.  Are there any others?  The trendnet device is USB 1.1 only and, as such, is getting a bit hard to find through retail channels any more.  That and I've had bad luck with the plastic tab breaking on the linksys unit. 

Are there any other units set up like the trendnet?  That is, with a short USB pigtail and a regular RJ45 jack that will work with the Chumby?  I'd like to stick with devices that use a regular RJ45 socket, not something as fragile like the linksys.  I don't suppose it has to use a permanently wired USB cable as extensions are available in all sorts of lengths.

What chipsets is the software expecting to see?

And would the chumby still see such a device if it were connected via a USB hub?

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

It uses the RT73 chipset

http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/S … Linux.html

Actually one of the other threads has a diff to support some other hardware manufacturers that use an RT73 chipset in their USB/Ethernet dongle..

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

check tigerdirect.com for the trendnet unit, they still had them a month ago when I ordered mine.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

The AirLink101 USB 2.0 USB dongle, model ASOHOUSB works well with the drivers that are already installed in the Chumby's OS/Kernel (based on the ASIX AX88772 chipset)


http://www.airlink101.com/products/asohousb.php

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

What about other wireless NICs ... which ones will work?

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

heinrich wrote:

What about other wireless NICs ... which ones will work?

The kernel has built-in support for USB wireless devices using the zd1211 and rt73 chipsets.

It's possible to load additional kernel driver modules for other devices from a USB dongle if you build them.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Duane I'm beginning to really appreciate you smile

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Digging through the kernel source code, the following should work too if you follow the instructions for the Linksys USB200M adapter on the wiki page (http://wiki.chumby.com/mediawiki/index. … d_Ethernet).

Linksys USB200M
Netgear FA120
DLink DUB-E100
Intellinet, ST Lab USB Ethernet
Hawking UF200, TrendNet TU2-ET100
Billionton Systems, USB2AR
ATEN UC210T
Buffalo LUA-U2-KTX
Sitecom LN-029 "USB 2.0 10/100 Ethernet adapter"
corega FEther USB2-TX
Surecom EP-1427X-2
goodway corp usb gwusb2e
ASIX AX88772 10/100

Many aren't available anymore though.

I have also added support for the Apple USB-to-Ethernet adapter too - http://driveactivated.com/blog/archive/ … h-way.aspx

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drive … rw/devices

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Is support for the Apple USB 2.0 Ethernet adapter built in at this point? Model MB442Z/A.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Not yet - while the chipset is supported, the kernel does not have the USB ID of this device in its tables so it's not recognized.  I've already filed a bug for it.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Let me know if you need any help with testing. I've tried samuel337's workaround (4 messages up) and it doesn't work consistently for me. It seems like it is screwing up the router I'm using here at work and it actually disrupts my PC connection! I unplug Chumby and my PC network connection suddenly springs to life.

Duane, maybe old news to you, but I was reading some older comments in another thread you made about wireless being more and more available. That may be true, but Chumby in the workplace is a problem for me right now. Wired is the only way I can go unless you want to start supporting EAP/PEAP. I bought my second Chumby specifically for use at work. I guess I'll go dig out my old Linksys USB adapter and see if that works.

Sigh.  :-)

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

We'll have direct support for wired Ethernet dongles in the next firmware release.  In the meantime, the hacks posted on the wiki should help.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

What's the latest on wired ethernet? We are running into some issues with our chumbies.

We have physically removed the wifi card from the device and were successfully connecting using the Linksys USB 100M ethernet adapter. This works for a while, but after a few hours/days the ethernet drops off the network. It's still lit up but it can not connect to the internet and I can no longer ping it from the network. Unplug/replug of ethernet cable and USB dongle does not help, only power cycling the chumby can get it online again. The flash movie does not crash, it continues to play fine.

One theory is since the wifi card is not there, it is causing some sort of memory leak or crash in another driver ( rt73? ) that knocks out the network. Can I try removing that driver? ( rmmod rt73 )? or is it necessary for other funcationality?

Thinking it could also be the network card, I ordered a Trendnet adapter, a Belkin F5D5050 and we also have the Apple one lying around.  We're just starting to test these other ethernet adapters, but so far it looks like they might have the same problem.

The Belkin won't work at all. I'm loading the pegasus driver and it successfully sees the usb and it starts blinking red/orange, but DHCP times out.

pegasus: v0.6.13 (2005/11/13), Pegasus/Pegasus II USB Ethernet driver
bus usb: add driver pegasus
usb: Matched Device 1-3:1.0 with Driver pegasus
pegasus 1-3:1.0: setup Pegasus II specific registers
CLASS: registering class device: ID = 'eth0'
class_uevent - name = eth0
pegasus 1-3:1.0: eth0, Belkin F5D5050 USB Ethernet, 00:05:1b:72:54:0d
bound device '1-3:1.0' to driver 'pegasus'
usb: Bound Device 1-3:1.0 to Driver pegasus
usbcore: registered new driver pegasus
eth0: set allmulti

chumby:~# udhcpc -t 5 -n -p /var/run/udhcpc.eth0.pid -i eth0
udhcpc (v1.6.1) started
Sending discover...
Sending discover...
Sending discover...
Sending discover...
Sending discover...
No lease, failing
chumby:~#

Trendnet is working and running on the bench now, wee'll see in a few hours if it holds up.

Anyone have suggestions or other things we can try to debug this issue?

Thanks!
-Vince

15 (edited by samuel337 2009-05-05 07:06:27)

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

VinceC wrote:

What's the latest on wired ethernet? We are running into some issues with our chumbies.

We have physically removed the wifi card from the device and were successfully connecting using the Linksys USB 100M ethernet adapter. This works for a while, but after a few hours/days the ethernet drops off the network. It's still lit up but it can not connect to the internet and I can no longer ping it from the network. Unplug/replug of ethernet cable and USB dongle does not help, only power cycling the chumby can get it online again. The flash movie does not crash, it continues to play fine.

One theory is since the wifi card is not there, it is causing some sort of memory leak or crash in another driver ( rt73? ) that knocks out the network.

I have the Apple USB Ethernet Adapter, and have left the internal USB wifi adapter intact, yet still experience the same problem. I have never seen it last more than a few hours before it just magically drops out and refuses to reconnect, even if I connect via wireless, SSH in and do ifconfig down, ifconfig up, and refresh DHCP.

So there's something iffy going on with the unsupported USB ethernet hack. Others seem to have had the same issue with the Trendnet and Linksys ones too.

Firmware 1.7 apparently has supported support for wired ethernet devices - release date unknown though.

16

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

samuel337 wrote:

Firmware 1.7 apparently has supported support for wired ethernet devices - release date unknown though.

That would be today smile

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Do we know if the Apple USB ethernet adapter is now supported?

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

odavy wrote:

Do we know if the Apple USB ethernet adapter is now supported?

The USB codes were added to the "asix" device driver, however, we did not have this particular device to test against.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Cool, thanks guys!  Though it's not listed in the release notes, I see it now prompts now during initial setup to use wired or wireless. I selected wired with the belkin plugged in, but still no luck. DHCP times out, and even setting a static ip doe s not get it online.

I will be able to do tests with the Apple, Linksys, and Trendnet adapters tomorrow and will report back with my findings.

What usb adapter did you guys use when testing this firmware release? Was it able to stay connected for an extended period of time?

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Duane wrote:
odavy wrote:

Do we know if the Apple USB ethernet adapter is now supported?

The USB codes were added to the "asix" device driver, however, we did not have this particular device to test against.

Nope, doesn't seem to work sad I have removed my USB drive so any previous modifications are no longer in effect. ifconfig doesn't report anything other than loopback and rausb0. The network part of the settings control panel scans for adapters, but only finds wireless APs.

When will the source code be available? I might take a look in there and see if the right USB codes were added.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Duane wrote:
odavy wrote:

Do we know if the Apple USB ethernet adapter is now supported?

The USB codes were added to the "asix" device driver, however, we did not have this particular device to test against.

Duane, can I just send you one? I suspect that, at least in the US, these are some of the most widely available USB-ethernet adapters due to the advent of the MacBook Air and its lack of an ethernet port.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Please try it with the Beta Control Panel and the latest firmware update - it may simply work now.

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

No joy for me using the beta control panel. It still quickly skips past the "Scanning adapters..." screen and asks me to choose a wireless network. I hooked up this Chumby wirelessly at home to get to the beta control panel, but how would someone who can't get to a wireless network even go about downloading the beta control panel?

HW: 3.8 SW: 1.7.0 FW: 1649 (is that the latest?)

Thanks,
Dave

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

I did lots of chumby testing today. Linksys 100m and Trendnet are the best ethernet adapters out of the bunch . Right now I have 3 Linksys adapters and the trendnet all running for several hours and so far no disconnects. We'll let it run for a few more days and report back.

The Apple adapter is not detected in 1.7. I installed the beta on one of my units and it still does not detect it.

The Belkin adapter is detected but it will not get an IP address no matter what i try.

odavy, I updated 7 chumbies to 1.7 today using the usb method described on the wiki.  I suppose if you don't have wifi and don't have a working out-of-the-box adapter, your kinda stuck until they post the zip of update files for the beta release.

Here is what shows up in the logs when the Apple adapter is plugged in:

[   15.850000] bus usb: add driver asix
[   15.860000] usb: Matched Device 1-3:1.0 with Driver asix
[   20.950000] asix: probe of 1-3:1.0 failed with error -110
[   20.960000] usbcore: registered new driver asix

unplug and replug into other usb port:

[  297.120000] usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using imx21-hc and address 4
[  297.310000] DEV: registering device: ID = '1-1'
[  297.310000] bus usb: add device 1-1
[  297.310000] bound device '1-1' to driver 'usb'
[  297.310000] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  297.340000] DEV: registering device: ID = '1-1:1.0'
[  297.340000] bus usb: add device 1-1:1.0
[  297.340000] usb: Matched Device 1-1:1.0 with Driver asix

-Vince

Re: Which wired ethernet devices will work?

Based on the log, our modifications to the driver appears to recognize it as an asix-based adpator, but when the driver attempts to use it, it fails.

We'd have to have an actual device to debug this.

EDIT: I picked up a device at the local Apple Store and gave it to Ken to look at - we've confirmed it's not working, so now we'll figure out why.  I hope Apple didn't do something goofy (again).