[RFC] Inclusion of RT2860 driver

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 12:04:20PM -0600, Adam McDaniel wrote:
> 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?)

There's a perfectly standard mechanism already for setting module defaults
(modprobe).  If that's the reason, then there are probably other issues with
the driver as well.  It sounds fishy to me.

-- 
 - mdz