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<tt>Hi Kel,<br>
<br>
Actually I was referring to the sources distributed by the OEM at:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=1&PFid=1&Level=6&Conn=5&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true#352">http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=1&PFid=1&Level=6&Conn=5&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false&Downloads=true#352</a><br>
<br>
These are still maintained (to some degree), the driver works very well
and appears to be widely used, as I discovered when I patched it to
compile on the 2.6.24 kernel recently.<br>
<br>
I was not aware that the new mac80211 version is now in the 2.6.25
kernel (the sources I got from the rtl-wifi project homepage didn't
compile for me on 2.6.24 either), but certainly if that's the case, my
point about continuing to build the ipw back-end in newer wpasupplicant
packages is redundant.<br>
<br>
Furthermore, I agree that it is preferable to support the more
progressive mac80211 driver, although I don't think it's fair to say
that the wpasupplicant package advertising support for the older driver
would be a "disservice" of any kind.<br>
<br>
In any case, the point seems moot and I thank you for taking the time
to reply to my concerns.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Will<br>
</tt><tt><br>
</tt><br>
Kel Modderman wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:200805052315.45205.kel@otaku42.de" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Tuesday 29 April 2008 23:00:12 Will Daniels wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi,
Hope I'm mailing this to the right place, sorry if it's not :)
I was just looking at the Debian Changelog for the wpasupplicant package
and noticed this entry for 0.6.1~git20071119-1:
* No longer build "ndiswrapper" or "ipw" backends. Etch shipped with a
kernel in which neither of these backends could work (> Linux 2.6.14) so
it is about time we no longer pretended to support for them.
Even though the Intel IPW drivers support WPA through WEXT now, there is
at least one other driver that I know of, r8180 (Realtek) which was
originally based on the IPW driver code (before WEXT-18 extensions) and
so supports WPA using the IPW backend in wpa_supplicant, but not yet via
WEXT. So, the ipw backend really needs to stay there or at least be
made available as a separate package or something.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
The linux kernel drivers supporting realtek wireless lan chipsets (rtl8180,
rtl8187) that are in active development are mac80211 based. I think
you may be referring to a driver that is no longer maintained[0] which forked
a very early version of the Intel ieee80211 stack and is very likely to be
buggy and only get more buggy as it bitrots. In my opinion, if the
wpasupplicant package advertised support for this driver it would be
doing a disservice to its users.
rtl8180 first appeared in Linux 2.6.25, so it is very new.
[0] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/">http://rtl8180-sa2400.sourceforge.net/</a>
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">The comment about neither the ipw nor ndiswrapper backends being able to
work in kernels above 2.6.14 has me a little confused, since I'm
currently using the ipw backend in Ubuntu Hardy with kernel 2.6.24
(wpa_supplicant v0.5.8)...
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
ndiswrapper didn't expose it's private ioctl's to any kernel version past
2.6.14 or 2.6.15, and they were later removed. Jouni Malinen and I have
discussed why driver_ndiswrapper.c still exists and that discussion is on
public record[1].
[1] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap/2007-November/016566.html">http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap/2007-November/016566.html</a>
Below is an extract from src/drivers/driver_ipw.c[2] file from wpa_supplicant
sources:
* Please note that ipw2100/2200 drivers change to use generic Linux wireless
* extensions if the kernel includes support for WE-18 or newer (Linux 2.6.13
* or newer). driver_wext.c should be used in those cases.
[2] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://w1.fi/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=hostap.git;a=blob;f=src/drivers/driver_ipw.c;hb=HEAD">http://w1.fi/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=hostap.git;a=blob;f=src/drivers/driver_ipw.c;hb=HEAD</a>
Kel.
</pre>
</blockquote>
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