Weaknees hard drive upgrade kit fiasco. (Long)

On 2006-04-17, Bill Kearney wrote:
You're blaming TiVo when Linksys goes out of their way to break things?
Linksys changes out the hardware of the NIC with a totally different
chip, while leaving the same packaging and model # attached all over.

Linksys is not the only vendor to do this, Netgear has done it as well.

The state of linux USB ethernet is pretty lame. There aren't many reliable

The sensible thing here would be to engineer with that in mind and
not be in a position to be dependent on USB devices when it is close to
impossible to find a pci ethernet chipset that isn't supported in Linux.

A USB NIC is a pretty daft idea to begin with.

drivers for when x86 chips are used. The MIPS chip in the Tivo units
requires a different driver (sometimes just a recompile but not always).

So yeah, it's annoying but that's the breaks for being on the bleeding edge.



--
Sophocles wants his cut. |||
/ | \

The sensible thing here would be to engineer with that in mind and
not be in a position to be dependent on USB devices when it is close to
impossible to find a pci ethernet chipset that isn't supported in Linux.

A USB NIC is a pretty daft idea to begin with.


I believe the idea is that a USB NIC is upgradeable (which is useful as
wireless standards are updated often), whereas a built-in NIC is not.
It's probably better to have both options, which is why the S3 will have
both.

You could use a wireless bridge with a built-in NIC, but it's a good bit
more expensive then a wireless USB NIC.

Randy S.

Bill Kearney wrote:


You're blaming TiVo when Linksys goes out of their way to break things?
Linksys changes out the hardware of the NIC with a totally different
chip, while leaving the same packaging and model # attached all over.

Linksys is not the only vendor to do this, Netgear has done it as well.

The state of linux USB ethernet is pretty lame. There aren't many reliable

This isn't even limited to USB NICs; general purpose PCI ethernet cards
(yes, Linksys is also doing it here) can be totally rebuilt between
"revisions" of the card, and so require different drivers. Essentially
they are different cards, but they're marketted under the same name.

When buying an ethernet card for a general purpose linux machine you
sometimes have to be aware of revision of the card, to ensure the right
drivers are loaded (or even if drivers exist at all).

This **** is really annoying.

--
Stephen Harris

The truth is the truth, and opinion just opinion. But what is what?
My employer pays to ignore my opinions; you get to do it for free.

Randy S. wrote:

I believe the idea is that a USB NIC is upgradeable (which is useful as
wireless standards are updated often), whereas a built-in NIC is not.
It's probably better to have both options, which is why the S3 will have
both.

TiVo made a mistake in not having a 100baseT built in NIC, at least in the
S2. The need to upgrade from that is minimal, unless you want to go
wireless.

--
Stephen Harris

The truth is the truth, and opinion just opinion. But what is what?
My employer pays to ignore my opinions; you get to do it for free.

A USB NIC is a pretty daft idea to begin with.

I believe the idea is that a USB NIC is upgradeable (which is useful as
wireless standards are updated often), whereas a built-in NIC is not.

Using WiFi for this sort of bulk data is a pretty daft idea. It takes
considerably longer to shuffle program data across a wireless link. You're
already wiring it up for cable or satellite so adding a CAT5 wire isn't all
that big a deal.

You could use a wireless bridge with a built-in NIC, but it's a good bit
more expensive then a wireless USB NIC.

Yes, using the wired-to-wireless bridges is a better idea. That way the
Tivo only thinks there's a wired connection and you don't have to do any
special configuring from the Tivo end of it. Wired ethernet drivers are a
lot more stable at this point in time.

On 17 Apr 2006 09:41:24 -0700, wrote:

Hi, I'm curious about this. Will not having version 7.2.2 prevent
someone from upgrading from scratch from a new clean, unformatted IDE
drive, or does this apply only to upgrade drives that have already been
specially pre configured?

I'll let you know after next Saturday. I'm going to have a v7.2.2
"compatible" USB adapter by then and I'm going to try and use the
mfstools to add the second drive. If that doesn't work, then I'm going
to InstantCake the drives.

Dennis

Gad Zoox wrote:
On 17 Apr 2006 09:41:24 -0700, wrote:


Hi, I'm curious about this. Will not having version 7.2.2 prevent
someone from upgrading from scratch from a new clean, unformatted IDE
drive, or does this apply only to upgrade drives that have already been
specially pre configured?


I'll let you know after next Saturday. I'm going to have a v7.2.2
"compatible" USB adapter by then and I'm going to try and use the
mfstools to add the second drive. If that doesn't work, then I'm going
to InstantCake the drives.

Dennis

From what it sounds like it even a scratch install would still be
blocked as it seems the "holding tank" list is kept server side, and not
based on client side detection. That's just a educated guess though.

Randy S.

Bill Kearney wrote:
A USB NIC is a pretty daft idea to begin with.

I believe the idea is that a USB NIC is upgradeable (which is useful as
wireless standards are updated often), whereas a built-in NIC is not.


Using WiFi for this sort of bulk data is a pretty daft idea. It takes
considerably longer to shuffle program data across a wireless link. You're
already wiring it up for cable or satellite so adding a CAT5 wire isn't all
that big a deal.

Maybe, but originally they probably didn't plan on doing show transfers
across it, plus you could always use a USB wired ethernet NIC. But
obviously the shortcomings of that are apparent, which is probably why
the S3 has a built in NIC.



You could use a wireless bridge with a built-in NIC, but it's a good bit
more expensive then a wireless USB NIC.


Yes, using the wired-to-wireless bridges is a better idea. That way the
Tivo only thinks there's a wired connection and you don't have to do any
special configuring from the Tivo end of it. Wired ethernet drivers are a
lot more stable at this point in time.

In article , "Randy S." wrote:
Gad Zoox wrote:
On 17 Apr 2006 09:41:24 -0700, wrote:


Hi, I'm curious about this. Will not having version 7.2.2 prevent
someone from upgrading from scratch from a new clean, unformatted IDE
drive, or does this apply only to upgrade drives that have already been
specially pre configured?


I'll let you know after next Saturday. I'm going to have a v7.2.2
"compatible" USB adapter by then and I'm going to try and use the
mfstools to add the second drive. If that doesn't work, then I'm going
to InstantCake the drives.

Dennis

From what it sounds like it even a scratch install would still be
blocked as it seems the "holding tank" list is kept server side, and not
based on client side detection. That's just a educated guess though.

Randy S.
I thnk he just wants to get the second drive installed, upgraded OS be damned.

On 2006-04-17, Randy S. wrote:
The sensible thing here would be to engineer with that in mind and
not be in a position to be dependent on USB devices when it is close to
impossible to find a pci ethernet chipset that isn't supported in Linux.

A USB NIC is a pretty daft idea to begin with.


I believe the idea is that a USB NIC is upgradeable (which is useful as
wireless standards are updated often), whereas a built-in NIC is not.

You don't need to dibble dable with USB to get this. You can just
use an external access point. This will also very likely yield you something
with a respectable antenna in the process.

PCI and Cardbus slots are also an option. Either one of those would
be remarkably better than USB.

It's probably better to have both options, which is why the S3 will have
both.

You could use a wireless bridge with a built-in NIC, but it's a good bit
more expensive then a wireless USB NIC.

You also don't have to support it.

Wifi is a mess even under ideal conditions.

--
vi isn't easy to use. |||
/ | \
vi is easy to REPLACE.

Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com