Intel USB client driver situation

[Stefan Bader]

mail654 at gmx.de wrote:
> Hi Kernel team,
> 
> I use Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 LTS on a Intel Atom based device 
> with the LPIA port from ports.ubuntu.com.
> 
> There is the Intel USB client driver (IUSBC) included in the Ubuntu Linux
> kernel 2.6.24 as patch "0017-poulsbo_USBC.patch".
> 
> Because the driver is a bit outdated (2.0.0), I asked Intel for a newer
> one (currently 2.3.0), but got the answer, than usually they provide
> this driver to OS vendors only.
> 
> My questions are:
> Could you please update the driver to the latest one in kernel 2.6.24?

Generic driver updates are not usually done, even in a LTS release, as updates
there need careful review and SRU policy limits those for that reason.

> If not, because Hardy is stable, could you please ask Intel for updated driver and provide it separately?

You might get a much improved experience by trying to go to more recent release.
And going with that you actually could go towards running a generic i386 arch
instead of lpia (which is actually the same codewise). The poulsbo driver was
dropped from the kernel code after Hardy as it turned out to be such a maintenance
burden to run with.

Instread the ubuntu-modible team maintains a PPA at

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mobile/+archive/ppa/+packages

In there, there is a psb-kernel-source package which contains the latest
driver from Intel. You should be able to get the updated driver from
there if you really want to stay with Hardy.

> Why is this driver not included in kernels after 2.6.24 anymore?
> Could it be added to the recent kernels again?

As stated above, it is now a dkms package which makes it possible to have
the driver automatically be rebuild on kernel updates.

Cheers,
Stefan
 
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Erik