[RFC] Inclusion of RT2860 driver

[Adam McDaniel]

On Wed, September 10, 2008 7:58 am, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 09, 2008 at 05:13:08PM -0600, Adam McDaniel wrote:
>> On Tue, September 9, 2008 4:16 pm, Stefan Bader wrote:
>> > The most uncommon part probably is that the driver wants some
>> configuration
>> > data (a file) in /etc/Wireless/...
>>
>> That config directory is optional.
>>
>> The driver merely looks for a file called
>> /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat which is only used for runtime
>> configuration. If the file is not found, the module assumes everything has
>> been supplied by ifconfig/iwconfig/etc, which is perfectly compatible with
>> hardy's NetworkManager.
>
> Which part of the driver uses this file?  Is there a userland helper or
> something?  It would be most unusual for the kernel itself to do this.

I agree that this is most unusual for the kernel module to do this, but
rt2860sta.ko does make an attempt to look for this file. I believe that
this functionality was added by the developer as a convenient way to
configure default values at module load-time. (Perhaps in his/her dev
environment the convenience of wireless-tools and/or NetworkManager wasn't
available?)

If the file is missing when rt2860sta.ko is inserted into the kernel, the
driver behaves just like any other wireless module. Standardized userland
programs can still be used to configure it. (I.e.: iwlist, iwconfig, iwpriv,
etc.)

If needed, I can whip up a patch tonight that removes this functionality,
however from the end-user's perspective it shouldn't change anything.

--
Adam McDaniel