[pkg-wpa-devel] Removal of madwifi driver backend support
Kel Modderman
kel at otaku42.de
Sun May 25 12:03:41 UTC 2008
Hi,
I would like to propose the removal of madwifi specific backend from
wpasupplicant package for the following reasons:
1) The use of -Dmadwifi is actively warned against by upstream Madwifi
developers. wext should be used instead.
2) If there are bugs in wext driver backend in conjunction with madwifi, they
should be reported, and they will be more likely to be fixed since wext is
the preferred standard of operation for both Madwifi and
hostap/wpa_supplicant upstream support and development personell.
3) The use of a snapshot of madwifi include files to enable private interface
introduces ABI incompatibility when upstream Madwifi changes. There is no
facility to ensure a stable wpa_supplicant/madwifi backend interface with
various different versions of madwifi driver. The fact that this has not
changed in a while is pure luck; the Madwfi project's delivery of new binary
HAL + glue has stagnated for a long time now.
4) The madwifi include files constitute a huge part of the debian difference to
upstream, making the package slightly more difficult to maintain.
5) NetworkManager uses "wext" as backend for, as far as I can see after
inspecting source code, all wireless devices.
6) Compatibility code could be put into ifupdown integration to display a
message when "wpa-driver madwifi" line was used in a /e/n/i stanza, and
the operation could continue with wext backend.
Thanks, Kel.
More information about the Pkg-wpa-devel
mailing list