Fallback-induced thoughts

I saw two or three bug filings in last couple of months which deal with a USB device not working until ehci_hcd is unloaded. Thinking sensibly, it's rather normal, a poorly-made or poorly-cabled device may choose to report High (480) speed yet will be unable to communicate at that speed. And a couple of devices failing across half a million of users is rare. However, the thing is, such cases were extremely rare before, I don't even remember the last time this happened. So, I'm starting to worry that EHCI hardware or software may have a subtle bug somewhere (perhaps specific silicon percolated to the field).

If only there was a way to tap into Novell's bugzilla and watch their kernel bugs, to collate with ours. Ditto the Bligh's Bugme and Ubuntu's whatever (Launchpad?).

For readily identifiable bugs, we just report them to linux-usb or whatever and then patterns just come together, but the problem of fallback-wannabe devices is too flimsy and vague.

P.S. By "fallback" I mean the new code which switches a port over to a Full (12) speed if enumeration fails. It's a practical solution, but it seems like sweeping the problem under the carpet to me. Also, it won't work for anything that's plugged into a hub.

UPDATE: Amit from Ubuntu pointed to their bug 88746. V.interesting.

Syndicated 2008-04-15 21:29:40 (Updated 2008-04-16 01:47:52) from Pete Zaitcev