Nokia N900 + USB devices
I don’t even know whether to write about this in an abstractly melancholic way, or joyfully hysterically, but the fact is that now you can easily connect any USB device to the Nokia N900, and many of them will even work. In particular, flash drives, external hard drives, card readers, keyboards, mice, usb-ethernet adapters, usb-rs232, usb 3g / wimax modems (in particular Yota) are tested and work.
And that, I tell you, is a deadly thing. This was the latest deliverance from the need to take a laptop on trips.
In order not to crumble into words, I will give an example in the video:
Under the cat a little more video, a little help on the subject and some useful points on the work of various devices I tested.
A bit of history. Although I was not the owner of the early models of Nokia Internet tablets, on which Maemo was born and developed, but I know that USB Host Mode was out of the box and the people were actively using this happiness. Support for it was planned on the N900, but it so happened that shortly before the release there were some changes in hardware, and the engineers simply did not fit into the deadline in order to support the entire infrastructure of the USB - battery charging, USB OTG - and decided to abolish it , assuming to add software later, but at least to pass certification now and not have any extra problems. It is quite logical step.
Then it was not entirely clear whether the problems with the implementation of USB OTG on the N900 turned out to be more complicated than expected, or Nokia engineers scored on the N900 due to the release of the new N8 and N9 models (the first of them has USB OTG out of the box ) and the transition to the development of MeeGo, but the alpha version of drivers that activate USB Host Mode appeared only on September 23, 2010 . And the group of kernel hackers, not directly connected with Nokia, did this. The beta version, which is recognized to be fairly stable and ready for use by the masses, was released on November 7th .
')
USB devices requiring a current of less than 200mA are supported. All that wants more is connected via an active USB hub.
From tested devices:
Now for some details and tips.
First , "how to establish this happiness?" Very simple - go to the Application Manager and install the hostmode-gui program . . Further, if you have not yet updated, then from there (from the Application Manager) install an advanced version of the kernel - kernel-power. After that, you need to restart the phone.
Of course, it is more convenient to do this from the terminal:
Secondly , you need an adapter - either USB mother-to-mother (USB A Female - USB A Female) or USB mother-to-MicroUSB B male (USB A Female-MicroUSB Type B Male). The first is then connected to a standard microUSB male cable - USB A Male (which comes bundled).
Someone who is friends with a soldering iron can solder on their own, but look at the maemo forums for proper wiring to reduce headaches for yourself)
Something like that:
You can buy it here:
www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2646 (they say that they deliver stably to Russia and Ukraine for 10-20 days)
cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250641334947#ht_1344wt_907
shop-galaxy.com.ua/?catalog=95160&item=1543 (a shop in Odessa, I ordered from them, delivered to Kiev within 24 hours)
Well, the radio market.
In Moscow, on the Savelovsky market there are such adapters (the second option)
Thirdly , which is obvious, USB devices are consuming the phone's battery like crazy. And they do it well even when connected through a hub. Therefore, sitting day and night with a connected USB keyboard or a connected USB hard drive does not shine yet. But you don’t need it :) At least for situations where you need to rewrite something and type a lot of letters - the battery will be more than enough. But still, I will hope that in the near future it will be possible to simultaneously charge the battery and use USB devices connected to the active hub.
Fourth , the application part of the software side is not yet very developed - no automounting, pop-up windows like “You connected a new USB device” and all that. This is purely a matter of time.
So far, in brief (relevant at the time of this writing - November 15, 2010):
USB 500GB HDD through active hub
All-in-one USB card reader
USB mouse
USB keyboard
( And another video with keyboard connection )
USB DVD drive
USB WiMax Yota Modem
Who would not like to react to this event, but this is really an event, and it is far from showing its real potential. For me personally, this is just a new page in using the phone.
A big request not to compare the features of the N900 and other phones in the comments, and not to offend users of other mobile operating systems.
UPD. The people connect and configure tsiska with n900 :)
And that, I tell you, is a deadly thing. This was the latest deliverance from the need to take a laptop on trips.
In order not to crumble into words, I will give an example in the video:
Under the cat a little more video, a little help on the subject and some useful points on the work of various devices I tested.
Introduction
A bit of history. Although I was not the owner of the early models of Nokia Internet tablets, on which Maemo was born and developed, but I know that USB Host Mode was out of the box and the people were actively using this happiness. Support for it was planned on the N900, but it so happened that shortly before the release there were some changes in hardware, and the engineers simply did not fit into the deadline in order to support the entire infrastructure of the USB - battery charging, USB OTG - and decided to abolish it , assuming to add software later, but at least to pass certification now and not have any extra problems. It is quite logical step.
Then it was not entirely clear whether the problems with the implementation of USB OTG on the N900 turned out to be more complicated than expected, or Nokia engineers scored on the N900 due to the release of the new N8 and N9 models (the first of them has USB OTG out of the box ) and the transition to the development of MeeGo, but the alpha version of drivers that activate USB Host Mode appeared only on September 23, 2010 . And the group of kernel hackers, not directly connected with Nokia, did this. The beta version, which is recognized to be fairly stable and ready for use by the masses, was released on November 7th .
')
Supported devices
USB devices requiring a current of less than 200mA are supported. All that wants more is connected via an active USB hub.
From tested devices:
- flash drives - almost everything. Flash keychains, card readers, portable video cameras (like Kodak Zi8), cameras, other phones - in general, everything that can work as a USB Mass Storage Device.
- external HDD and dvd / cd-drives - in principle, apply to the first item, but since they consume more power - you need to connect via an active USB hub
- USB HID device - mouse and keyboard. This also includes Linux-supported tablets, trackballs and everything else - but so far I haven’t met any feedback, and the trackball is somehow too much for a phone))
- USB-RJ45 Adapters - Allows you to plug an ethernet cable into your N900 and enjoy all the amenities of a wired connection :)
- USB-rs232 adapters - the people even connect tsiska to the N900 ( proof-photo )
- 3G, Wifi and Wimax modems - in particular Yota ( proof-video )
- a large subset of devices that do not require data transfer, only power - usb-flashlights, usb-jokes and others like him
- an even larger subset of specific devices not yet tested - USB RFID readers, etc.
Nuances of use
Now for some details and tips.
First , "how to establish this happiness?" Very simple - go to the Application Manager and install the hostmode-gui program . . Further, if you have not yet updated, then from there (from the Application Manager) install an advanced version of the kernel - kernel-power. After that, you need to restart the phone.
Of course, it is more convenient to do this from the terminal:
root
apt-get install hostmode-gui kernel-powerSecondly , you need an adapter - either USB mother-to-mother (USB A Female - USB A Female) or USB mother-to-MicroUSB B male (USB A Female-MicroUSB Type B Male). The first is then connected to a standard microUSB male cable - USB A Male (which comes bundled).
Someone who is friends with a soldering iron can solder on their own, but look at the maemo forums for proper wiring to reduce headaches for yourself)
Something like that:
You can buy it here:
www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2646 (they say that they deliver stably to Russia and Ukraine for 10-20 days)
cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250641334947#ht_1344wt_907
shop-galaxy.com.ua/?catalog=95160&item=1543 (a shop in Odessa, I ordered from them, delivered to Kiev within 24 hours)
Well, the radio market.
In Moscow, on the Savelovsky market there are such adapters (the second option)
Thirdly , which is obvious, USB devices are consuming the phone's battery like crazy. And they do it well even when connected through a hub. Therefore, sitting day and night with a connected USB keyboard or a connected USB hard drive does not shine yet. But you don’t need it :) At least for situations where you need to rewrite something and type a lot of letters - the battery will be more than enough. But still, I will hope that in the near future it will be possible to simultaneously charge the battery and use USB devices connected to the active hub.
Fourth , the application part of the software side is not yet very developed - no automounting, pop-up windows like “You connected a new USB device” and all that. This is purely a matter of time.
So far, in brief (relevant at the time of this writing - November 15, 2010):
- Drives - the GUI that activates the hostmode is engaged in mounting USB drives, so no additional packages need to be installed - the device will be mounted in the / media directory
- Mice - to use the mouse, you need to install the bt-hid-scripts package, made even for connecting Bluetooth mice. A MouseCursor program will appear. You can also enable, disable, and switch the cursor from the command line using the showcursor, hidecursor, and togglecursor commands, respectively.
- Keyboards are a bit trickier here. The keyboard layout will need to change. This is very easy to do - just put the extkbd program. In the Parameters, a new item will appear - External Keyboard, in which you need to configure the keyboard (layouts, shift keys, etc.) and reconnect the keyboard. After that, everything will work “by itself” - for the hardware keyboard of the phone its own layout, for the external one - its own. :)
Just in case, I’ll give you an important point, which I hope will be fixed in future versions of the package - when you remove it, you need to reinstall the xkb-data package, otherwise it will be bad - you will have to reflash. - Adapters usb-rj45 - you need to build a usbnet module. They promised to add to the future version of kernel-power.
- Adapters usb-rs232 - work out of the box. Put minicom and forward. )
Demo
USB 500GB HDD through active hub
All-in-one USB card reader
USB mouse
USB keyboard
( And another video with keyboard connection )
USB DVD drive
USB WiMax Yota Modem
Conclusion
Who would not like to react to this event, but this is really an event, and it is far from showing its real potential. For me personally, this is just a new page in using the phone.
A big request not to compare the features of the N900 and other phones in the comments, and not to offend users of other mobile operating systems.
UPD. The people connect and configure tsiska with n900 :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/108205/
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