Welcome to Our IOGEAR GUB211 Website!

I started to do this in BlueGriffon -but- there are not enough 'conveniences' in the free version and I just don't have $75 to waste on the pro version in hopes that it can perform as well as 'my' Homesite. I have been spoiled for years.

Now then, the reason for this page is to figure out how to use an IOGEAR GUB 211 in my openSuSE Linux. The little disc that came with it only has drivers for Windows and a Mac.

Also need to make notes about the Windows usgage. My Wife's Windows 10 took a crap and we have to reset it up. Almost like getting a new machine.
See:  Win10 Page  

Features  

  • Easily share a USB device without network configuration
  • Share one USB printer between two computers with auto switch*
  • Share other USB devices such as a hard drive or scanner
  • Supports PC and Mac computers
  • USB 2.0 - High speed support and USB 1.1 backward compatible
  • Active-port LED indicators to show which computer has USB access
  • Easily share a USB device without network configuration
  • Bus Powered - No external power supply needed
  • * Automatic switch function is software based and only available with USB printer or the printer function of a multi-function printer. For connecting and using other type of USB devices, it requires installing the included software and perform the switch using the application. This device does not support USB webcams.
Refer:  Other World Computing  

   

  The Linux Driver

In the most fundamental sense, a driver is a software component that lets the operating system and a device communicate with each other. Refer:  What is a Driver   That seems simple enough 'except' Windows and Linux communicate differently. Consequently, we need different drivers.

Now then, IOGEAR does NOT supply a driver for Linux. I guess there are to many versions. Even though they 'should' all work the same, they don't. That problem even exists in Windows. That is what has made 'computing' so difficult. Ok now, on to the subject.

I searched the Web and found the following:
   Userspace Linux driver for IOGEAR GUB211 USB 2.0 Printer Auto Sharing Switch.
It is on GitHub and you have to build it yourself. But that is the Nature of Open Source Computing. Besides, you can tweak it to fit your OS and desires. This was placed up there in May of 2013, so this thing has been around for a while. The contents of the zip are:

One of the files above is a Python Script. The script calls for usb.core and usb.util which are in PyUSB. This is NOT automatically loaded and was not really easy to find -but- it is in the installable code. Look for "python-usb". You need the dash. The other item is 'libusb' which I had already installed. Hopefully, the correct one, cause there were many listed. Both installed.

Comments from inside the Script:
user space utility to grab the device connected to a IOGEAR GUB211 auto
sharing usb switch. The device shows up with VID=0x2101, PID=0x0231. Since
that vendor id belongs to actionstar, I would expect this program to also
work with ActionStar's SW-221A and SW-241A, but I haven't tested it.

This will either need to run as root or you will need to do udev magic to
set the permissions to allow access to the user you're going to run it as.

Now we need to compile the 'C' code and set things up. -BUT- first I must walk the dog and then go to work and then go to the Docs.

Looks like we might need another item;  userspace-rcu.ymp . Not sure about that ... yet, but will have to remember it as we go along.
-BUT- we tried to compile it... NO go.
gub211.c:40:31: fatal error: libusb-1.0/libusb.h: No such file or directory
        #include <libusb-1.0/libusb.h>
So we looked all around and hard a hard time finding the include file. Been a while since we have done much of this. Finally on one of those hunches/wimms I installed
      libusb-1_0-devel.
The include file was/is in there and it compiled. First try at running I got a segmentation fault.

 August 27th, 2017/10:35pm  We got it working!! Didn't really change anything in the code but I restarted in Windows Mode to see IF the concept really worked. I installed the IOGEAR Software in my Windows 10 and then tried printing from Dar's PC and mine. It worked!!

Then I Re-Booted into my Linux. Everything worked!! Even my "Local Networking" worked. I had screwed everything up trying to get the Wireless Printing working. Evidently I did the right things cause now my system is usable again... with a printer!


   

  Blend recognition

Blend is a free, fully standards-compliant CSS template designed by Free CSS Templates. This free template is released under a Creative Commons Attributions 2.5 license, so you're pretty much free to do whatever you want with it (even use it commercially) provided you keep the links in the footer intact. Have fun with it :)

This template is also available as a WordPress theme at Free WordPress Themes.