linux firewire recommendations

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:02:13 -0800
Bill Campbell <bill at celestial.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 10:45:37AM +0100, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> >On Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:32:53 -0800
> >Bill Campbell <bill at celestial.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 10:17:24AM -0700, Collins wrote:
> >> >Anyone familiar with linux/fireware/adapters etc.?
> >> >
> >> >I'm looking to attach my JVC DVL805 camcorder to my linux box. 
> >> >Obviously I will need to add a firewire adapter to the box and
> >software.> 
> >> I'm using an Adaptec unit (downstairs so I can't see the model).
> >> 
> >> When I was in CompUSA last week, I saw some adapters that have both USB
> >2> and FireWare on the same PCI card.
> >
> >USB2 is about 5-10% faster than firewire. In practice, they are roughly
> >the same in thruput. I am just waiting for the 800 mbit version of
> >firewire. If it is still on. I am guessing that USB2 will kill the
> >current firewire. Unless the proposed double speed version ever makes it
> >to product.
> 
> I'm still a bit leery of USB-anything.  FireWire has been around and well
> supported by Apple for quite a while so I suspect it's a bit more robust.

This could be. I just bought an Iomega Peerless for backup. It is available
with two small hardware interfaces: one for firewire and one for USB2. I
opted for the firewire because (1) I had a card in the box already, and (2)
I do not have the USB2 drivers for Linux installed. Just updating the sbp2
driver in Caldera 3.1.1 to a stable one was a PITA. There are ordering
problems for loading the device drivers and connecting the disks. Adding a
new device driver (USB2) to Caldera's patched kernel surely would not be
easier.

Something tells me, by all the firewire/USB2 combo thing out there, that the
two are more similar electrically than one may think. I have never checked.

-- 
+????????????????????????????+???????????????????????????????+
? Roger Oberholtzer          ?   E-mail: roger at opq.se        ?
? OPQ Systems AB             ?      WWW: http://www.opq.se/  ?
? Erik Dahlbergsgatan 41-43  ?    Phone: Int + 46 8   314223 ?
? 115 34 Stockholm           ?   Mobile: Int + 46 733 621657 ?
? Sweden                     ?      Fax: Int + 46 8   302602 ?
+????????????????????????????+???????????????????????????????+