My friend Urho Konttori is at it again - this time making a USB Host Mode program to switch between USB Client, USB OnTheGo, and USB Host. It's fantastic.
Installation: Now that it's added to the repositories, it's a one-click install and worked fine for me. The hardware requirement is the included USB cable with the Internet Tablet and a "Female to Female" USB adapter. I got one at Fry's Electronics for $4.
The application is simple: Three buttons on the bottom allow you to select host mode, OTG mode, and (the default) Peripheral mode. OTG mode is for cameras and related devices supporting that protocol. Peripheral mode turns your tablet into a card reader to look at the internal and card storage. Host mode allows other devices (such as flash drives and keyboards) to be connected.
I tested it with a variety of devices:
- USB Flash Drive - Success
- USB Hard Drive - Limited success: External drives must be both fully powered externally (not just through one of those USB power splitters) and must not be formatted with NTFS. I tested an ext2 filesystem and a FAT32 filesystem and they worked fine.
- USB DVD-ROM - The device recognized, but the filesystem did not.
- USB keyboard - Worked fine.
- USB Mouse - Was recognized but did nothing.
When an error like the above appears, it means the filesystem is not recognized. To save space and speed, the N810's kernel was compiled with only a few types of file system supported.Thank you for making the tablet that much more functional, Urho.
20 comments:
Oh now that's very, very cool. Where did you get that USB to USB adapter?
Will this work with the n800, or only the n810?
yes, also wondering if this can work on N800!
It'll work on any N8x0 device running OS2008.
You can either use a special cable/adapter with the N810 to put it into host mode automatically, or a gender-changer adapter (in the UK, I got mine from Amazon) and then force the device into host mode.
The latter can be done with a program like Urho's or Kate Alhola's status bar plugin, which also handles configuring networking etc.
Kate's been doing an interesting and in-depth series of articles on USB host support on her blog.
Of course, you should note that USB hosting is buggy. I get the "Filesystem not supported" message when I connect my USB keyboard! An spurious error message will come up when connecting devices -- but many times you can ignore them.
So it's should be regarded as a bets (maybe alpha?) feature. But it's still cool and Konttori's app is very helpful.
OTG is not meant to be used with other OTG devices like cameras. OTG means that your device selects dynamically between OTG host and OTG peripheral mode depending on the cable type being used. The default mode is OTG (not peripheral like you write) which results in OTG peripheral mode with the cable delivered with the n800/n810.
The reason some people need this program at all is the fact that those people have problems getting a micro-usb host cable (or they just don't know that those exist). They thus want to use the peripheral mode cable delivered with the n810 to run the n810 in host mode. OTG won't do that since it detects the cable type automatically. Thus you have to override it using this program.
The peropheral setting is of basically no use as every n810/n800 is delivered with the cable to automatically switch into OTG peripheral mode when being in OTG mode.
it found my mouse, keyboard, usb drive.
my card reader has a little light on it which flashed afew times (btw i remember when n800 came out people were saying the usb wasnt powered) but didnt work.
camera not detected but its like that even on the desktop only supports one type of protocol i think.
only my usb drive worked, file manager popped up etc.
are you using a powered keyboard?
Excellent find Dan, thanks! :)
Been tearing my hair out trying to get this N810 to just work in host mode with Urho's usbcontrol. Dowwloaded from the repository after flashing update for OS2008. The USB CONTROLLE MODE:b_idle window opens and with the micro-USB cable from Nokia and a female-female USB2 connector to a 1G or 2G Kingston flash drive nothing happens.
I can click on OTG or Peripheral or Host and Refresh each one and I don't see any changes at the title MODE: just b_idle. I have noticed in a great recent posting here that the pictures shows a Nokia flash drive. (Is the software compatable with Kingston?) Also noticed the file size on the picture for the usbcontrol in the respository picture was 2.2 MB while the one listed to download is just 2.0 MB. Could this be a problem. Would be happy just to get this to work in Host mode.
Welcome any help.
And what about 770 with 2008HE? Or this has other piece of usb chip?
How about with a USB 3G modem?
Awesome! For over a year now I have been trying to figure out how to use my n800 to browse my photos on my Sony f717 camera (which takes Memory Sticks and not SD cards)... this software finally makes it a reality! Works great! Thanks.
Nice article, but what about usb-ethernet-interface? ONE big thing i miss in N810/800
Truly a kick-butt application. Thank You Mr. Konttori!
You mentioned the USB mouse not working. There's been some effort to rectify that in the itT forums for some time now.
We've got it working smoothly for KDE and RDesktop, though unfortunately many native apps don't play nice with mouse clicks. It's even packaged up in a nice .deb, and handles BT mice as well.
Check it out: http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15111
I need some help, here. I have the female A to female adapter, and I have USB Control installed. I got a USB external hard drive - the BMOTG2.5 with 160gb samsung 2.5" drive inside. It's an OTG drive, but please note that I use the mini USB out, which provides a standard, non-OTG connection. It has a female A plug on it for OTG connections. I formatted the drive to Fat32, and I still get the Unable to connect, no file system available. From everything I've read, it seems I should be good to go. Should I try ext2? Is that going to make a difference if something about the enclosure is causing a problem? what could the problem be?
I could not get it to work with a Verizon Wireless USB device. Although clicking on "host" does cause the devices LEDs to light up briefly, the USB id of the device is never retrieved. Perhaps this is a power issue?
awesome program; i think Nokia would sell a lot more N810/N800 if they advertised this ability.
Really, they should include a couple extra USB cables in the box.
I've just started fooling around w/ this, and...
I was wondering if anyone had tips for how to connect my laptop's Fujitsu MHU2100AT 100GB hard-drive.
??
I've purchased a USB hard drive adapter and plan to power it via a powered USB hub. (adapter comes w/ power adapter, but it's only for hooking directly into some sort of beefcake hard drive)
If I try the USB hub's power, and this still doesn't work, should I be surprised?
I'm wondering if I need to look for a Linux-compatible adapter. It says "OTG" next to a little button, and comes w/ Windows/Macintosh drivers, but so far, I can't get it to power on w/ my N810.
I've successfully used a keyboard so far.
But, I'm really interested in getting some sort of ipod or small hard-drive as a portable add-on to my N810.
Any recommendations for a hassle free/self powered solution???
We need iPhone USB host driver support for a storage device, NOT WIRELESS, via connector on iPhone. Can you assist for $ ?
I think the problem with this and USB 3G adaptors is the fact that there is no USB power available.
I plug in on optus one, I get unsupported device messages but no lights on the modem at all.
Any ideas??
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