Explanation of libusb vs libusb-win32; libusb.org, libusb.info, etc

[gwideman]

The landscape for someone just trying to figure out what to install to get a USB peripheral working (in my case, AVRISP MkII with WinAVR's included libusb version who-knows-what) is dauntingly confusing.

Is there somewhere (or could someone create it if there isn't) a concise explanation of the conspicuous players in this space, all the components, and how they do or don't relate to each other? For starters:

How does libusb relate to libusb-win32? I thought they were alternatives to one another or possibly that the -win32 one superceeds the not-win32 one, in light of not-win32 being uninstallable due to lack of signature. But now I see on page https://github.com/libusb/libusb/wiki/Windows that libusb claims to support recent Windows. Except then I read that libusb requires libusb-win32. What? Totally confused.

And then there's the proliferation of websites that might or might not be related:
libusb.org. libusb,info ("The old site is now obsolete, please use libusb.info." -- what "old site" is that?), github.com/libusb, sourceforge.net/projects/libusb-win32.

Help!

-- Graham

[mcuee]

libusb.org is the old project website for libusb project. libusb.info is the new site.

I've edited libusb Wiki to reflect that libusb-win32 and libusbK are separated projects and I have also clarified what is libusb-win32 and what is libusbK. Hope that helps. In any case, libusb does not depend on libusb-win32.

When we talk about libusb, usually we do not mean the old libusb-0.1 project which does not support Windows. That is why libusb-win32 was created last time.

[gwideman]

Hi mcuee. Thanks for looking into this topic. I saw your edits to the wiki, and to be honest, I am at least as confused as before. It now says:

"This project [libusb] adds Windows platform support to the libusb Open Source library, in order to help developers easily communicate with USB devices on Windows. Currently it supports the WinUSB and HID drivers for generic USB device access as well as the libusb-win32 and libusbK drivers."

First off, how can libusb add something to libusb... that seems recursive. Has the project been getting infinitely larger? :-)

More seriously -- nowhere is there a discussion of how these components relate to one another. I am guessing that some of these components are libraries which an application talks to, and those libraries talk to Windows APIs? And other components are drivers that are called upon by Windows via an OS defined API to operate particular internal or external hardware?

And maybe some confusion is caused due to several of these being called libusb[something], resulting in confusion regarding whether it's a library or a driver? Or maybe the product called libusb[something] includes both a library component AND a driver component (and possibly a filter component, whatever that is?)

Ideally what is needed is a diagram showing how all these pieces fit together: Application, library, Windows, driver, (and what exactly is a "device" in this context?), and anything else that's relevant in trying to assemble a coherent set of pieces. What calls what, via what API?

Looking forward to gaining some insight!

[mcuee]

Further discussions were carried out in the mailing list. Closing this ticket.

[gwideman]

@mcuee I searched mailing list libusb-devel, and didn't see any discussion. Could you point me to the discussions you mention? Thanks.

[mcuee]

Is the following not enough for you? What do you exactly want? If possible, please use the mailing list for further discussion.
libusb/libusb.github.com#1

[gwideman]

@mcuee I am confused. You wrote there was a discussion on the mailing list. I wanted to keep up with the discussion, so I went to look for it but didn't see it, and am not entirely sure I looked at the right archive (https://sourceforge.net/p/libusb/mailman/libusb-devel/). So I asked where this discussion is. Is this the list you referred to? And if so, I'm not seeing the discussion, so I asked about that. Have I somehow made a misstep? (And I could post this to the mailing list, but at the moment I don't know which one.)

[mcuee]

Sorry it is not in the mailing list but rather it is in the discussion of
the ticket. Is it good enough for you or not?
libusb/libusb.github.com#1
libusb/libusb.github.com#1

And I think it is more productive to use mailing list and not github ticket
to have further discussions.

Xiaofan

[gwideman]

Sure, that's fine.