Including usb-modeswitch in default installation?

[Josua Dietze]

Am 24.02.2010 15:59, schrieb Peteris Krisjanis:

> 2010/2/24 Scott James Remnant<scott at ubuntu.com>:
>> On Sun, 2010-02-07 at 16:16 +0200, Timo Jyrinki wrote:
>>
>>> Any objections or observations for a MIR (main inclusion request) of
>>> usb-modeswitch and inclusion on the default installation of Ubuntu
>>> 10.04 LTS? Binary package size is 30kB + 10kB (data).
>>>
>> I have an objection on the basis that we *already* have modem-modeswitch
>> (in the udev binary package), and Kernel code that already attempts much
>> the same thing.
>>
>> We shouldn't have three independent pieces overlapping like this,
>> especially since we'll almost certainly end up with conflicts between
>> them.
>>
>> One of these should "win" to be the default; that discussion shouldn't
>> be specific to Ubuntu but should happen on the upstream
>> linux-hotplug at vger.kernel.org mailing list.
>>
>
> I fully agree with you Scott, however I am not sure which one of us
> should start discussion there. Would be nice for you Ubuntu guys to
> start pushing this idea, because you have some backing.
>
> Anyway, I'm subscribing to that list and if no one will volunteer, I
> will try to initialize discussion.


I want to recall that discussion from February.

In the meantime, things have happened. Modem-modeswitch has been 
obsoleted upstream, it was reduced to a tool for switching a single 
device (Mobile Action Cable). The autor (Dan Williams) discourages any 
use for other mobile data equipment.

Again, the kernel developers are rejecting any new switching code and 
decided to keep the existing code only for backward compatibility reasons.
This kernel code affects some old devices from Option, Huawei and the 
Sierra family. All recent devices apart from Sierra have to be treated 
in userspace.

Even if there should be a "conflict" between kernel code and 
usb_modeswitch, there are all kinds of tests that prevent the latter 
from doing anything of relevance if the respective device stops being 
accessible during the preparation phase (which involves a little delay 
to give way to the kernel).
The switching process results in the disappearance of the original 
device, so the signal to userspace is very loud and clear if the 
kernel does it.

The current usb_modeswitch version 1.1.4 is boot-proof which was 
tested on several different distributions including Debian 5, 
OpenSUSE, Fedora 13, Ubuntu 9.10/10.4, Mandriva 2010.0.
See Debian-unstable for packages.


Josua Dietze