Re: Problem with 2.6.22 kernel

Hello, Milan!

On Mon, 2007-09-10 at 17:56 +0200, Milan Plzik wrote:
> On Po, 2007-09-10 at 06:59 -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> > Quoting Mark Sansome <[email protected]>:
> > 
> > > p.s. 2 cheeky additional questions:
> > > a) When (roughly) do you think the driver could be incorporated into  
> > >  the kernel?
> > 
> > I think it's too late for 2.6.24, but 2.6.25 is a realistic target.
> > 
> > > b) Any prospect of WPA support?
> > 
> > If mac80211 conversion succeeds, WPA will be supported automatically.
> > 
>   I'm not very sure, but is it really so?

It's hard to say until it's done.

>  AFAIK WPA support requires 1.x
> firmware releases, which are not (yet) supported at all.

You probably mean 1.103 firmware.  Indeed, it's not supported.  I think
it would be easier to add support for it once mac80211 conversion is
completed, as it would move some operations from the firmware to the
software, making firmware differences less relevant.

>  But I'm not
> sure what does WPA support exactly mean (e.g. what everything changes).

I think if the encryption is fully in the software, all that is needed
is the ability to send and receive encrypted frames as is.  Maybe the
1.103 firmware adds support for encryption in firmware, I don't know.

> I originally wanted to add support for WPA-enabled firmware to at76c503
> driver as a part of my bachelor's work (or at least make an attempt to
> do that), based on atmelwlandriver. However, if this can be done
> otherwise, I can rather focus on some other topic. 

I don't want to discourage you from this effort.  It's quite an
interesting task including some software archeology.  There is a
significant difference between the fields in the MIB structures as
described in at76_usb and atmelwlandriver.  Some may be due to firmware
changes, but some may be just errors in one of the drivers.

Every change needs to be verified on the hardware.  Until recently, I
only had Netgear MA-101 rev B (atmel_at76c503-rfmd.bin).  Today I
received Linksys WUSB11 rev 2.8 (atmel_at76c505-rfmd2958.bin).  I still
cannot find any devices with Intersil radio, and they are most likely to
be impacted by the changes.

If you have time and hardware, please go ahead.

By the way, I have no proof that the mac80211 conversion will result in
a working driver with the existing firmware, so your efforts may
actually help with WPA support.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin