Learned something new about WINE today

[GreyGeek]

WINE does not support USB.

One of my supportees called about running LeapFrog in WINE. She couldn't get the scanning wand to work. I consulted the WineHQ and found only one listing, in 2008. It's not even rated for WINE.

I thought maybe that CodeWeaver's CrossOver would work, but consulting the website proved otherwise. The "perhaps test" was to create a link between the Linux /dev/usb device and a COMn in the WINE's dosdevices subdirectory. That obviously won't work.

I brought the scanning wand and books it scans home and tried them out in my XP guest OS under VB. When downloading the audio file for a book the wand constantly disconnects the USB port. To make the connection permanent I have to make a permanent entry under the USB configuration tab by right mousing on the add button and selecting the device from the popup menu. Then, I have to have it plugged into the port BEFORE I start up XP to avoid a "can't find ..." error. But, either way, with the permanent configuration setting the device works in XP under VB. But, alas, NOT in WINE or CrossOver. Too bad.

[dibl]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

USB devices, including storage, audio, and optical, are fully supported under VMware Player.

Just sayin' ......

[GreyGeek]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

Yup, I was aware of that, which is why I mentioned XP under VB. But, I normally just plug in a usb stick and then use the VB devices --> USB and check on the one I want to access in XP. That works .... for a while. The scanning wand would begin downloading the audio file and just about the time it would try to close the file the USB stick would disconnect from XP. I had to go into the config for XP under VB and specifically assign that scanning wand as a USB connection. Then, when I started XP it gave me a message that it couldn't find the wand but by the time the music played the wand was seen and connected to.

I had always *assumed* that WINE & CrossOver supported USB but never had a need to use USB until today. Glad I wasn't driving 50 miles to some one's house assuming that when I got there I'd load something directly from the USB stick

I should have remembered this USB problem though. A few months ago I experimented with Street Atlas 6.0 under WINE and couldn't get it to recognize the EarthMate GPS receiver, which connects to the USB port. At the time it never occurred to me that WINE didn't support USB. I always ... ready for it? ... *assumed" it was a problem with the GPS receiver not being a true USB device.

[claydoh]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

I think that the usb device may have to be usable in Linux before wine can use it, but don't hold me to that. Wine isn't emulation, as it is in VB, it is running windows libraries, etc under linux

[Detonate]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

Just curious as to how much memory you have allocated to your VB? I had some problems that went away when I increased this.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

At the time it never occurred to me that WINE didn't support USB.

That is the sole reason for me currently having a Win XP VM at all. Whilst TomTom Home will successfully install under Wine, it cannot detect the device.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

I think that the usb device may have to be usable in Linux before wine can use it, but don't hold me to that. Wine isn't emulation, as it is in VB, it is running windows libraries, etc under linux

The LeapFrog hand scanner wasn't recognized by Linux when I plugged it into the USB port BUT, using lsusb, I could see the product ID (0f86:0e00). Probably because the scanner was waiting for some DLL or ActiveX handshake to initiate, and that never happened. So, there is little wonder that WINE didn't recognize it. But, besides that, CodeWeaver's support staff said that neither CrossOver nor WINE support USB, even if Linux sees the device plugged into it.

However, while Linux didn't recognize it, when I clicked on the "Devices" menu in VB it was listed there, along with previous USB devices that I had plugged into the port while VB was running. When I clicked on the scanner while running XP in VB it was immediately recognized and the scanner light came on and it began talking. To get XP to make the connection permenant while the LeapFrog web site was communicating with it I had to add it to the list of "supported USB devices" in USB config section of the VB XP config.

[skunk]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

You can make wine recognize some USB devices but it takes some work and many attempts just fail spectacularly
http://wiki.winehq.org/USB

[GreyGeek]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

You can make wine recognize some USB devices but it takes some work and many attempts just fail spectacularly
http://wiki.winehq.org/USB

Ya, I captured that method suggested by the CodeWeaver staff, but expecting a USB device to respond to a COM1 or COM3 channel is too much.

[MoonRise]

Re: Learned something new about WINE today

I think that the usb device may have to be usable in Linux before wine can use it, but don't hold me to that. Wine isn't emulation, as it is in VB, it is running windows libraries, etc under linux

That is correct. the USB device must natively run in a Linux system for it to work in WINE. I have read from a few people who have used the "fix" and one person actually posted a good line by line how to compile WINE yourself with the fix, I just hadn't had the time to do it