Re: [Madwifi-devel] ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-16 Thread Nick Kossifidis

Just in case you want to experiment, i have a working port of ar5k
that works on madwifi-old before the BSD - HEAD merge...

well i'm no good programmer (yet), i did what i could (i'm sure those
define macros are nasty for most people :P) and hope that helps...

you can git clone from the following link

rsync://rsync.ath-driver.org/gnumonks_users/mb/openhal.git

I'm working with the following madwifi revision...
svn checkout http://svn.madwifi.org/branches/madwifi-old -r 1142 madwifi

Don't forget to remove the ending ) in line 175 at
net80211/ieee80211_radiotap.h ;-)

Also you'll need to do some modifications to make it work with newer
kernel versions (MODULE_PARM stuff in if_ath.c)...

diff -Naurp madwifi-openhal/ath/if_ath.c madwifi-openhal-fixed/ath/if_ath.c
--- madwifi-openhal/ath/if_ath.c2005-06-24 06:41:22.0 -0400
+++ madwifi-openhal-fixed/ath/if_ath.c  2006-08-04 14:49:38.0 -0400
@@ -245,13 +245,20 @@ enum {
#endif

static  int countrycode = -1;
-MODULE_PARM(countrycode, i);
-MODULE_PARM_DESC(countrycode, Override default country code);
static  int outdoor = -1;
-MODULE_PARM(outdoor, i);
-MODULE_PARM_DESC(outdoor, Enable/disable outdoor use);
static  int xchanmode = -1;
+#if (LINUX_VERSION_CODE  KERNEL_VERSION(2,5,52))
+MODULE_PARM(countrycode, i);
+MODULE_PARM(outdoor, i);
MODULE_PARM(xchanmode, i);
+#else
+#include linux/moduleparam.h
+module_param(countrycode, int, 0);
+module_param(outdoor, int, 0);
+module_param(xchanmode, int, 0);
+#endif
+MODULE_PARM_DESC(countrycode, Override default country code);
+MODULE_PARM_DESC(outdoor, Enable/disable outdoor use);
MODULE_PARM_DESC(xchanmode, Enable/disable extended channel mode);

int

See README for more details


I haven't looked much the MadWiFi code since then, perhaps you can
help in making ar5k work with newer madwifi versions + improve it's
functionality to help both linux and OpenBSD.

(The name OpenHAL came from John Bicket's initial port)


Happy coding ;-)
Nick

2006/11/16, Michael Renzmann [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

Hi.

Michael Buesch wrote:
 Well, it never worked for me. But I gave up trying about
 half a year ago. But maybe it's just stupid me. ;)

Well, we have various support channels (an IRC channel besides two
mailing lists, for example) that you are welcome to make use of in case
of problems :)

Bye, Mike



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Re: [Madwifi-devel] ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-16 Thread Dan Williams
On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 14:39 -0500, Pavel Roskin wrote:
 Hello!
 
 On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 14:21 -0500, John W. Linville wrote:
  On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 07:42:14PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote:
  
   Now that it seems to be ok to use these openbsd sources, should I port
   them to my driver framework?
   I looked over the ar5k code and, well, I don't like it. ;)
   I don't really like having a HAL. I'd rather prefer a real driver
   without that HAL obfuscation.
  
  I don't think anyone likes the HAL-based architecture.  I don't think
  we will accept a HAL-based driver into the upstream kernel.
 
 I said it before, and it's worth repeating.  Dissolving HAL in the
 sources is easy.  It's just a matter of moving functions around without
 serious chances of breaking anything as long as the source compiles.
 The whole HAL-based architecture can be reshuffled and eliminated by
 one person in a few days.
 
 Making things work properly takes years.  That's what MadWifi has been
 working on for a long time, using contributions and bug reports from
 scores of users and developers.
 
 Rejecting MadWifi because it's HAL based is like throwing away a diamond
 ring because it's too narrow.

No, I'd personally reject madwifi not because of the HAL but because it
uses the net80211 stack [1].  We don't need another 802.11 stack in the
Linux kernel, of course.  But since the Devicescape people have already
ported madwifi to d80211 (see David Kimdon's announcement on netdev on
Oct. 17th), that appears to be a valid path to follow and at least some
of the work has already been done.  If the HAL bits were ported to ar5k
and folded back into the driver, I think that would be a great start.

Dan

[1] nothing against net80211; it's a fine stack.  But There Can Be Only
One, if just for sanity's sake.

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Re: [Madwifi-devel] ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-16 Thread Michael Renzmann
Hi.

 At least, this way we have a chance to get USB working as well (See
 http://madwifi.org/ticket/33).

It's not the HAL that prevents MadWifi implementing USB support. Replacing
the binary-only HAL with OpenHAL and/or dissolving the HAL functionality
in the driver source does not get us any closer to a working support of
USB sticks.

Quoting Sam Leffler on that topic:

=== cut ===
The Atheros-based USB devices work rather differently from the
cardbus/pci cards.  In particular there is no hal; instead there's an
onboard processor that runs the hal and implements a special protocol.
This means you can reuse some of madwifi but you also (probably) need to
redo the code some to break out different interfaces.  It's not a simple
project.
=== cut ===

see: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.drivers.madwifi.user/5380

 OpenBSD seems to have a working driver (if_uath.c) for these USB WLAN
 sticks.

Which, at least for some sticks, requires a not freely distributable
binary firmware blob, by the way (see:
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/openbsd/cvs/2006-09/0233.html ).
Nevertheless, it would be nice to have that driver ported to Linux.

Bye, Mike

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Re: ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-15 Thread Michael Buesch
On Wednesday 15 November 2006 04:10, John W. Linville wrote:
 It is my pleasure to announce that the SFLC [1] has assisted the ar5k
 developers in evaluating the development history of Reyk Floeter's
 OpenBSD reverse-engineered Atheros HAL, ar5k [2].  SFLC's assessment
 leads to the conclusion that free software developers should not be
 worried about using/extending ar5k or porting ar5k to other platforms.
 
 In the past there were serious questions raised and even dire warnings
 made about ar5k's copyright status.  The purpose of this statement
 is to refute those claims and to publicly clarify ar5k's status
 to developers.
 
 SFLC has made independent inquiries with the OpenBSD team regarding the
 development history of ar5k source.  The responses received provide
 a reasonable basis for SFLC to believe that the OpenBSD developers
 who worked on ar5k did not misappropriate code, and that the ar5k
 implementation is OpenBSD's original copyrighted work.
 
 This announcement should serve to remove the cloud which has prevented
 progress towards an in-kernel driver for Atheros hardware.  This should
 be of particular interest to those involved with the DadWifi project [3].
 
 I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the folks at the SFLC for
 their hard work, and I'd also like to personally thank Luis Rodriguez
 for the role he played in coordinating contact between the SFLC and
 the community at large.
 
 Thanks!
 
 John
 
 [1] http://www.softwarefreedom.org/
 [2] http://team.vantronix.net/ar5k/
 [3] http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-netdevm=116113064513921w=2

So, who is finally going to _DO_ the work?
Some of you know that I started an atheros driver at
http://bu3sch.de/ath/atheros.git/
It's not really a driver, yet, as nobody got to continue on the specification,
so I was stuck.

Now that it seems to be ok to use these openbsd sources, should I port
them to my driver framework?
I looked over the ar5k code and, well, I don't like it. ;)
I don't really like having a HAL. I'd rather prefer a real driver
without that HAL obfuscation.

-- 
Greetings Michael.
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Re: ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-15 Thread John W. Linville
On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 07:42:14PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote:

 Now that it seems to be ok to use these openbsd sources, should I port
 them to my driver framework?
 I looked over the ar5k code and, well, I don't like it. ;)
 I don't really like having a HAL. I'd rather prefer a real driver
 without that HAL obfuscation.

I don't think anyone likes the HAL-based architecture.  I don't think
we will accept a HAL-based driver into the upstream kernel.

The point is that the ar5k is now safe to be used as a reference and
source of information (and code, as appropriate) without copyright FUD.
Distilling that information into a proper Linux driver is work that
remains to be done.

John
-- 
John W. Linville
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Madwifi-devel] ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-15 Thread Ben Greear

Michael Buesch wrote:


Yeah, ok. I'll look what I can do. First I'll have to read the code.
and understand it. DMA stuff seems to be really obfuscated though
dozens of callbacks, heh. :)


I'd certainly like to see solid Atheros chipset support in mainline.
If you need any hardware or other resources to help with this effort,
let me know.

Thanks,
Ben

--
Ben Greear [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com

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Re: ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-15 Thread Arjan van de Ven
On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 14:21 -0500, John W. Linville wrote:
 On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 07:42:14PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote:
 
  Now that it seems to be ok to use these openbsd sources, should I port
  them to my driver framework?
  I looked over the ar5k code and, well, I don't like it. ;)
  I don't really like having a HAL. I'd rather prefer a real driver
  without that HAL obfuscation.
 
 I don't think anyone likes the HAL-based architecture.  I don't think
 we will accept a HAL-based driver into the upstream kernel.
 
 The point is that the ar5k is now safe to be used as a reference and
 source of information (and code, as appropriate) without copyright FUD.
 Distilling that information into a proper Linux driver is work that
 remains to be done.

there have been several efforts on this before; is it worth revitalizing
one of them?

Also I suspect that if you merge a provisional driver early, lots of
folks will switch to it and start beating on it and fixing the style etc
issues...


-- 
if you want to mail me at work (you don't), use arjan (at) linux.intel.com
Test the interaction between Linux and your BIOS via 
http://www.linuxfirmwarekit.org

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Re: [Madwifi-devel] ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-15 Thread Pavel Roskin
Hello!

On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 14:21 -0500, John W. Linville wrote:
 On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 07:42:14PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote:
 
  Now that it seems to be ok to use these openbsd sources, should I port
  them to my driver framework?
  I looked over the ar5k code and, well, I don't like it. ;)
  I don't really like having a HAL. I'd rather prefer a real driver
  without that HAL obfuscation.
 
 I don't think anyone likes the HAL-based architecture.  I don't think
 we will accept a HAL-based driver into the upstream kernel.

I said it before, and it's worth repeating.  Dissolving HAL in the
sources is easy.  It's just a matter of moving functions around without
serious chances of breaking anything as long as the source compiles.
The whole HAL-based architecture can be reshuffled and eliminated by
one person in a few days.

Making things work properly takes years.  That's what MadWifi has been
working on for a long time, using contributions and bug reports from
scores of users and developers.

Rejecting MadWifi because it's HAL based is like throwing away a diamond
ring because it's too narrow.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin


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Re: [Madwifi-devel] ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-15 Thread Michael Buesch
On Wednesday 15 November 2006 20:39, Pavel Roskin wrote:
 Hello!
 
 On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 14:21 -0500, John W. Linville wrote:
  On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 07:42:14PM +0100, Michael Buesch wrote:
  
   Now that it seems to be ok to use these openbsd sources, should I port
   them to my driver framework?
   I looked over the ar5k code and, well, I don't like it. ;)
   I don't really like having a HAL. I'd rather prefer a real driver
   without that HAL obfuscation.
  
  I don't think anyone likes the HAL-based architecture.  I don't think
  we will accept a HAL-based driver into the upstream kernel.
 
 I said it before, and it's worth repeating.  Dissolving HAL in the
 sources is easy.  It's just a matter of moving functions around without
 serious chances of breaking anything as long as the source compiles.
 The whole HAL-based architecture can be reshuffled and eliminated by
 one person in a few days.

I'll look at it tomorrow.
Probably best to merge this stuff into the tree somehow to get it
working and clean it up afterwards. Shouldn't be too hard to merge.

 Making things work properly takes years.  That's what MadWifi has been
 working on for a long time, using contributions and bug reports from
 scores of users and developers.
 
 Rejecting MadWifi because it's HAL based is like throwing away a diamond
 ring because it's too narrow.

Well, it never worked for me. But I gave up trying about
half a year ago. But maybe it's just stupid me. ;)

-- 
Greetings Michael.
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Re: [Madwifi-devel] ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-15 Thread Michael Renzmann

Hi.

Michael Buesch wrote:

Well, it never worked for me. But I gave up trying about
half a year ago. But maybe it's just stupid me. ;)


Well, we have various support channels (an IRC channel besides two 
mailing lists, for example) that you are welcome to make use of in case 
of problems :)


Bye, Mike


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ANNOUNCE: SFLC helps developers assess ar5k (enabling free Atheros HAL)

2006-11-14 Thread John W. Linville
It is my pleasure to announce that the SFLC [1] has assisted the ar5k
developers in evaluating the development history of Reyk Floeter's
OpenBSD reverse-engineered Atheros HAL, ar5k [2].  SFLC's assessment
leads to the conclusion that free software developers should not be
worried about using/extending ar5k or porting ar5k to other platforms.

In the past there were serious questions raised and even dire warnings
made about ar5k's copyright status.  The purpose of this statement
is to refute those claims and to publicly clarify ar5k's status
to developers.

SFLC has made independent inquiries with the OpenBSD team regarding the
development history of ar5k source.  The responses received provide
a reasonable basis for SFLC to believe that the OpenBSD developers
who worked on ar5k did not misappropriate code, and that the ar5k
implementation is OpenBSD's original copyrighted work.

This announcement should serve to remove the cloud which has prevented
progress towards an in-kernel driver for Atheros hardware.  This should
be of particular interest to those involved with the DadWifi project [3].

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the folks at the SFLC for
their hard work, and I'd also like to personally thank Luis Rodriguez
for the role he played in coordinating contact between the SFLC and
the community at large.

Thanks!

John

[1] http://www.softwarefreedom.org/
[2] http://team.vantronix.net/ar5k/
[3] http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-netdevm=116113064513921w=2
-- 
John W. Linville
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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