Off-Topic > Off-Topic - Tiny Core Lounge
artificial intelligence; automatic HW identification and driver download
ladnar:
Thanks Rich. I have had too much coffee and not enough sleep. I think I will stop posting and have a mid-morning nap.
Good advice on the shebang. I probably just mis-learned it, not taught wrong.
I will try "which blkid" after a nap.
In the interest of staying on topic, I re-read all the messages. I was missing some subtle points from sashank999, and some subtleties of the whole topic in general. If the CPU doesn't have a driver, and thus a way to communicate with the hardware, how does it know what hardware is there and which driver it needs?
Good question.
I think xor is making the point that there is some low-level communication that allows for this. I don't know if lshw and lspci and etc. respond to this "low level" signaling? Is it a smart enough signaling to tell, to the cpu, the peripheral/hardware device manufacturer number and product id? I have to assume xor knows what he is talking about.
With my cluster computer problem, I am using ethernet gadget USB. Last night I was studying OTG wires (something I embarrassingly neglected before this moment), and crucial to this implementation is a pin that is left floating if the wire is inserted one way, but grounded when inserted another way. This signals the USB controller(s) (chips), determining which chip will be the master (host) and which the slave (device). Once this low-level signaling occurs, this physical configuration established, the chips can begin to initiate the bus. This is just an example; admittedly an indistinct example. Just an example of low-level, hardware signaling that occurs before "speaking" to the cpu through a driver (I am pretty certain the USB chips set this up as soon as they are plugged in, with no input from the cpu or drivers. I could be wrong? But I figure once the chips get the simple stuff out of the way, the CPU and driver can start telling the USB controller what to do, what to send and what to receive.)
Ethernet gadget mode requires extra software; LKM, .ko modules, loaded? / interfaced? with the kernel. But now I am very OT; obsessed with my bramble-pi cluster!
So to summarize, hardware, when it is plugged in, can signal simple things like "ground on this wire", or "power on this wire". Beginning with simple things like this, one or two transistors might flip, and begin some low-level "Hello, I am here. My name is XYZ. the company that made me is ABC."-type communication. "Handshaking" type stuff. Does lspci and lshw and etc have THIS information? Or must one "dig deeper" to access this info?
I DEFINITELY don't know. Do you? (OK, its 7:30 Pacific time; up since 3 AM; must nap now.).
mocore:
...
--- Quote from: ladnar on October 01, 2020, 10:23:12 AM ---
So to summarize, hardware, when it is plugged in, can signal simple things like "ground on this wire", or "power on this wire". Beginning with simple things like this, one or two transistors might flip, and begin some low-level "Hello, I am here. My name is XYZ. the company that made me is ABC."-type communication. "Handshaking" type stuff. Does lspci and lshw and etc have THIS information? Or must one "dig deeper" to access this info?
I DEFINITELY don't know. Do you? (OK, its 7:30 Pacific time; up since 3 AM; must nap now.).
--- End quote ---
all i know is that i know nothing ! .. but after reading the hw/usb speculation in this topic , and searching i found a diagram* in a 'book'
https://sysplay.github.io/books/LinuxDrivers/book/Content/Part11.html ( copy @ https://i.imgur.com/rcCRJYF.png )
+ wrt kernal/usb https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/usb/index.html
.. and a few other random linux usb documentation links ,
- https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.13/driver-api/usb/writing_usb_driver.html
- ( Docs » The Linux driver implementer's API guide » Linux USB API » The Linux-USB Host Side API )
this https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/raspberrypi#usb_audio
also springs to mind , as an example of one microcosm of (raspberry/hw) implementation specific ambiguity and fun
eg > The RPi has a USB2.0 controller that apparently can cause issues with USB1.1 audio interfaces.
( see pi forums kernel / firmware "issues" for more `depth` ;- )
ladnar:
Its lsblk that picore does not have. blkid is there. There is a list of utilities that come with Busybox on the internet somewhere. I might be curious enough to check and see if lsblk is on there somewhere? Maybe I'll check the list of available tcz's (extensions?) too?
ladnar:
Thanks mocore.
I should have warned you. I hate every diagram about USB that I have ever encountered. Every last one of them is as clear as mud. As the son of a "copper-wire-twisted-pair-dinosaur-from-the-telephony-days" (telegraph, single wire, earth-return? Say it ain't so!), I have to say that these companies who write up the textbooks took a nice simple elegant topic and futz-ed it all up!
Differential signaling on twisted pair doesn't have to be rocket science. I bought 4 books on the subject, looking for a straight answer about "what does the signal look like", and I got a whole lot of "J and K" nonsense. That's not to say that the books were wrong; It just took four books, and 60 chapters to say what could have been summed up in three introductory chapters.
But, of course, it is an evolving standard, and it is complex, so I can cut them some slack. The best one I found was McDowell and Seyer (about 75% good information), but some of the things (the other 25%) they should have included I had to find in Jan Axelson's books (I owned 3 of hers!).
Rich:
Hi ladnar
--- Quote from: ladnar on October 01, 2020, 03:19:45 PM ---Its lsblk that picore does not have. ...
--- End quote ---
According to this list, installing util-linux.tcz will provide that function:
http://tinycorelinux.net/11.x/armv6/tcz/util-linux.tcz.list
--- Quote --- ... There is a list of utilities that come with Busybox on the internet somewhere. I might be curious enough to check and see if lsblk is on there somewhere? ...
--- End quote ---
To see which busybox commands have been enabled, run these 2 commands:
--- Code: ---busybox
busybox.suid
--- End code ---
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