On 2/19/19 9:59 AM, Celejar wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2019 14:12:43 -0800 David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> wrote: ...dock SATA chip -> drive. While the motherboard stuff can be FOSS based upon manufacturer supplied reference source code (e.g. Intel), USB drive docks are typically proprietary and closed-source. This makes USB docks next to impossible to trouble-shoot or bug-fix for end-users or FOSS distributors.I'm not sure I understood what you're saying here: do you mean that the drivers are closed source, or that the silicon design is closed source? I've used a number of USB-SATA adapters, in docks as well as cables, and they were all supported by standard in-kernel drivers (although some of the hardware may have been at least a bit flaky).
The ideal is for both the host and the device at either end of a USB cable to be "standards compliant":
https://www.usb.org/This implies a complete and correct USB hardware/ firmware/ software protocol stack on both of them.
I try to buy computers, motherboards, add-on cards, etc., with Intel chips because Intel releases open-source reference device driver source code for some portion of their products. Linux, Debian, FreeBSD, and other FOSS projects use and include this code (in source and/or binary form). This gives me the best chance of a positive OOTB experience with those FOSS operating systems/ distributions:
https://software.intel.com/en-us/open-sourceAFAIK there are no commercial off the shelf (COTS) USB-SATA docks with FOSS hardware (device), firmware (device), or software (device or host). (If somebody knows of any examples, please post the URL's.)
But, it might be possible to build your own using a FOSS operating system/ distribution and a single-board computer with a USB device port and a SATA host port:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_single-board_computers#I/O_interfaces_and_ports David