Ubuntu

usb support

Asked by Wendy

I am new to Linux so this may be a silly question.

In Windows (I know bad word) if you plug in a USB device the operating system recognizes the device and then it can be used. I am looking at Ubuntu the server version 9.04 how are USB devices handled by the operating system?

I see by some posts that not all USB devices work with Linux..??

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Arnaudus
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Best Arnaudus (a-lerouzic) said : 		#1

Hi,

It depends on the "device". If it is a volume (hard drive, flash drive, digital camera, mp3 player...), in general, you can quite easily access the content and modify it. Ideally, the device is detected and the icon appears on the Desktop, it is trivial to use it.

Other USB devices require some drivers. Modems, printers, webcams, etc. rarely communicates using a "standard" protocol, and whether or not your device will work "out of the box" is a bit of a lottery: some manufacturers provide drivers and support for Linux (great!), others don't (bad!), and whether or not a driver exists depend on the popularity of the device and, more generally, if someone competent has managed to write a proper driver. That means that for rare devices, the probability to make it work is probably close to 0.

Note that Windows has exactly the same problem. The only difference is that the manufacturer generally provides a CD with some drivers (sometimes buggy, often intrusive or security-threatening) for Windows, but if you occur to have the wrong version of Windows (too old, too recent...), you'll face exactly the same problem.

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Wendy (wvmail2003) said : 		#2

Thank you for your quick reply, I appreciate it.