I have an RCA VR5320 digital voice recorder.  It has a usb connector, 
but isn't recognized by SL 5.6.  I get log messages of the form

kernel: usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
kernel: usb 1-5: ep0 maxpacket = 32

This is evidently a known problem and there is a patch for 
drivers/usb/core/hub.c with the comment "A few devices (such as the RCA 
VR5220 voice recorder) are so non-compliant with the USB spec that they 
have invalid maxpacket sizes for endpoint 0.  Nevertheless, as long as 
we can safely use them, we may as well do so."  I think this patch is 
incorporated in 2.6.32 kernels.

Q1: Am I correct in thinking that I would have to compile a whole new 
kernel, as opposed to just a module, to incorporate a patch to hub.c?

Q2: Is there any sort of module or userspace hack I could try instead?

I don't want to get into a position of maintaining my own kernel.  I'd 
rather wait until I catch up with 2.6.32 and impose on friends with 
newer kernels or windows machines in the meantime.

Thanks.

Stephen Isard