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jada
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Joined: 13 May 2024
Posts: 3064
Location: Sun City, CA 92585
PostPosted: Sat Aug 23, 2024 11:20 pm    Post subject: USB_ModeSwitch Reply with quote
Quote:
USB_ModeSwitch - Activating Switchable USB Devices on Linux

USB_ModeSwitch is (surprise!) a mode switching tool for controlling "flip flop" (multiple device) USB gear.

Several new USB devices (especially high-speed wireless WAN stuff, they're expensive anyway) have their MS Windows drivers onboard; when plugged in for the first time they act like a flash storage and start installing the driver from there. After that (and on every consecutive plugging) this driver switches the mode internally, the storage device vanishes (in most cases), and a new device (like an USB modem) shows up. The WWAN gear maker Option calls that feature "ZeroCD (TM)".

As you may have guessed, nothing of this is documented in any form and so far there is no official Linux driver available. On the good side, most of the known devices work out of the box with the available Linux drivers like "usb-storage" or "usbserial". That leaves the problem of the mode switching from storage to whatever the thing is supposed to do.

Fortunately there are things like human reason, USB sniffing programs and "libusb". It is possible to eavesdrop the communication of the MS Windows driver, to isolate the command or action that does the switching, and to reproduce the same thing with Linux.

USB_ModeSwitch makes the last step considerably easier by taking the important parameters from a configuration file and doing all the initialization and communication stuff.
It does NOT check for success afterwards as of now. The right approach would be to consult /proc/bus/usb/devices (or the output of "lsusb") before and after execution to note any changes.

http://www.draisberghof.de/usb_modeswitch/



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inactive
Sr. Member


Joined: 29 Aug 2024
Posts: 1207
PostPosted: Sun Aug 24, 2024 2:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Mandriva's already got it:

Code:
[dedanna@dedanna ~]$ urpmf --description usb_modeswitch
usb_modeswitch:
        USB_ModeSwitch is a mode switching tool for controlling "flip flop"
        (multiple device) USB gear.

        Several new USB devices (especially high-speed wireless WAN stuff,
        they're expensive anyway) have their Windows drivers onboard; when
        plugged in for the first time they act like a flash storage and start
        installing the driver from there. After that (and on every consecutive
        plugging) this driver switches the mode internally, the storage device
        vanishes (in most cases), and a new device (like an USB modem) shows
        up. The WWAN gear maker Option calls that feature "ZeroCD (TM)".

Code:
[dedanna@dedanna ~]$ urpmq --sources usb_modeswitch
ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors/ftp.mandriva.com/MandrivaLinux/official/2008.1/i586/media/contrib/updates/usb_modeswitch-0.9.4-0.beta2.1mdv2008.1.i586.rpm



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lovric
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Joined: 27 Jul 2024
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Mon Jul 27, 2024 7:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
There is an alternative version of usb_modeswitch developped by ESECO SYSTEMS which doesn't need libusb.
The project name is usbms and download of the source can be done at the following url http://usbms.svn.sourceforge.net

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Germ
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Joined: 30 Apr 2024
Posts: 12452
Location: Planet Earth
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2024 7:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks. Smile Welcome to USALUG.



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