[PLUG] How to make my laptop look like a USB charger?

[Bill Barry]

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 4:09 PM, Eric House <eehouse at eehouse.org> wrote:

> I have a Dell laptop running Ubuntu and a Virgin Mobile "MiFi"
> cellular wifi hotspot.  The MiFi is great but for one bug: when you
> plug its USB cable into the laptop to charge it stops being a hotspot,
> so you have to carry a separate USB wallwart to charge it.
>
> I'm pretty sure this is unnecessary -- that if I could get my laptop
> to pretend to be a mere USB wallwart I could prevent the loss of wifi.
> Googling on the subject turns up instructions for fixing this by
> disabling USB Mass Storage mode on windows thus:
>
> # KB823732 explains how you can disable USB device support by changing
> # the Start value of
> # HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor to 4
>
> The closest I could think to try on GNU/Linux was to prevent the
> usb_storage module from loading, but this didn't work.  The MiFi still
> shuts down, meaning it's been signalled in some way by the laptop.
>
> Can anybody suggest how to do this, or where to read or ask for
> further information?  I'm happy to hack the drivers if that's what
> it's going to take.  It's apparently possible to fix this by removing
> the two inner contacts from a USB cable end, but I don't want to carry
> a second cable either -- if I can avoid it.
>
>
I can't test it because it would kill my keyboard, but how about unloading
the lower level usb driver usbcore.
Some other modules might depend on usbcore so they will have to be unloaded
also. If you need them this will not work.

Bill


> Thanks,
>
> --Eric
> --
>
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