Enabling Windows Update on Windows XP

Posted on 26. Feb, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in Windows

Windows 7 and Vista have Windows Update on by default, as do most recent Windows XP machines. So when a new USB device arrives, the system is able to go out to the Internet and check Microsoft’s huge library of drivers to find a match — a great plug and play experience for devices like those we make here at Plugable.

But Windows XP, when it originally shipped in 2001, didn’t have this capability. So to enable Windows Update on XP, if you don’t already have it on, just upgrade to XP Service Pack 2 or later, and follow Microsoft’s steps:

  1. Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then press ENTER.
  2. Click the Automatic Updates tab, and then click to select one of the following options. We recommend that you select the Automatic (recommended) Automatically download recommended updates for my computer and install them option.

Microsoft has more information in their knowledge base article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306525

UD-160-A automatic driver download and install via Windows Update

Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in Windows

Here’s the result when you connect the Plugable UD-160-A universal laptop docking station to a completely fresh Windows 7 system:

  • Windows automatically finds, downloads, and installs drivers for all the devices on the dock — the built-in USB C-Media audio, ASIX ethernet, DisplayLink graphics functions are all supported.
  • *NO* driver disks to find, no web addresses to enter, nothing – you get the latest drivers automatically.
  • This will work with the Plugable dock and any Windows 7 machine, now and in the future.

If you have Windows Update enabled on Vista and Windows XP – the story is the same (although Microsoft’s UI looks different on each OS). So go ahead, lose your driver disks — just get that off your mind. You won’t need them. Cool.

Linux USB multiseat audio support

Posted on 20. Jan, 2010 by Bernie Thompson in udlfb

Here’s how to add audio support on top of the previous instructions for getting USB multiseat running on Linux, with a Plugable UD-160-A type device.

Add the following line to the bottom of the /lib/udev/rules.d/50-usbseat.rules file created per the previous instructions.

KERNEL=="control*", SUBSYSTEM=="sound", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", PROGRAM="/bin/cat /sys/%p/../../../../../devnum", SYMLINK+="usbseat/%c/sound"

Then create a new /etc/X11/Xsession.d/50usbseat file which will be run at Xsession create time, with the following contents

oldIFS=$IFS
IFS=:
set $DISPLAY
IFS=.
set $2
SEAT_ID=$1
LN=`ls -al /dev/usbseat/$SEAT_ID/sound`
IFS=C
set $LN
CARD_ID=$2
export ALSA_CARD=$2
export ALSA_PCM_CARD=$2
IFS=$oldIFS

Each of the users who might need access to the USB devices needs to be added to the ‘audio’ group. On Ubuntu 9.04, this can be done with these commands to backup and then modify the groups (replace MY_USERNAME, of course) …

sudo cp /etc/group /etc/group_backup
sudo chmod a-wx /etc/group_backup
sudo adduser MY_USERNAME audio

See Ubuntu Sound TroubleShooting for details on that step.

Now, as you connect UD-160-A terminals, a new X instance and GDM login will pop up as before, but also each of them will have /dev/usbseat/%SEAT_ID%/sound linking to their sound device, and the ALSA_CARD environment variable for all processes off of that X session, set to the matching sound card ID. For apps which support ALSA/Pulse (like most browsers, flash, etc.), audio will now come out the correct terminal — all in a completely plug-and-play fashion.

If you’re wondering what the strange IFS stuff is in the above script, it’s bash’s built-in Internal Field Separator variable, which is an easy way to split strings without having to launch a separate sed or awk process.

Note, as before, these instructions are specific to and tested on an older version of Ubuntu: 9.04, and may need to be ported to other distros until the distros themselves integrate these scripts.

Thanks to Alexander Todorov’s earlier work on multiseat sound support, which demonstrated how to match the USB audio devices in udev, and which ALSA_ environment variables to set. Alexander reported some problems reliably matching the audio devices, but with these scripts (with limited testing so far), things are working as expected.

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