[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#591102: Bug#591102: iw: priority should be "optional"

[Stefan Lippers-Hollmann]

Hi

On Friday 30 December 2011, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-07-31 at 16:56 -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> > Package: iw
> > Version: 0.9.19-1
> > Severity: important
> > Justification: policy §2.5
> > 
> > aircrack-ng depends on iw, but the former is optional and the latter of
> > priority "extra".  Please bump up the priority of iw to optional to
> > match.
> [...]
> 
> I see that this change is pending.
> 
> However, I would go further and suggest that iw should be standard, as
> should crda and ethtool.

While I basically agree with your reasoning, I'm a bit reluctant to 
actually promote it to "standard" ("These packages provide a reasonably
small but not too limited character-mode system. This is what will be 
installed by default if the user doesn't select anything else.[...]"), 
given that iw/ crda are not needed on systems without wlan cards 
(basically all server class systems and a fair chunk of desktops); even
legacy wlan drivers[1] not based on nl80211 can't make use of either. 
Comparing the situation with wireless-tools (deprecated for modern 
mac80211 based drivers) and wpasupplicant, shows that both packages are
currently regarded "optional" as well, although I do recognize that the
regdom setting is a bit lower level than actually using the wlan.

Regards
	Stefan Lippers-Hollmann

[1]	The only "common" legacy driver appears to be Intel ipw2100/ 
	ipw2200 and perhaps airo/ airo_cs (Cisco/Aironet 34X/35X/4500/4800), 
	but affected are also:
	- ray_cs (Aviator/Raytheon)
	- atmel_{cs,pci} (Atmel at76c50x chipset)
	- wl3501_cs (Planet WL3501)
	- zd1201 (ZyDAS ZD1201)
	- hostap_{cs,plx,pci} (Intersil Prism2/2.5/3)
	as well as all staging wlan drivers, given that not being mac80211 
	based is the prime reason for them being in staging:
	- rtl8187se (RealTek RTL8187SE)
	- rtl8192e (RealTek RTL8192E)
	- rtl8192u (RealTek RTL8192U)
	- rtl8712 (RealTek RTL8712U (RTL8192SU))
	- vt6655 (VIA Technologies VT6655)
	- vt6656 (VIA Technologies VT6656)
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