[pkg-wpa-devel] Removal of madwifi driver backend support

[Tim Gardner]

Darren Albers wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 2:59 PM, Tim Gardner <tim.gardner at canonical.com> wrote:
>> Reinhard Tartler wrote:
>>
>>> Could perhaps the kernel team share their thoughts on the status of the
>>> madwifi driver? Is it scheduled to be removed from the intrepid kernel?
>>>
>> I think it's unlikely that madwifi will be removed from the
>> linux-restricted-modules package for Intrepid, but it may get
>> blacklisted by default in favor of the ath5k in-kernel driver. It
>> remains to be seen how functional and stable the ath5k driver is.
>>
>> rtg
>> --
>> Tim Gardner tim.gardner at ubuntu.com
>>
> 
> ath5k works greater with older Atheros card but does not work with the
> more recent cards such as the cards shipped on Thinkpads T42 or later.
>   The downside to using the ath5k driver is that it detects the cards,
> it just doesn't detect anything which will cause a lot of confusion
> for normal users.   Is it possible to detect the cards that ath5k
> supports and load the module but otherwise use madwifi?
> 
> Of course work is ongoing with the ath5k driver so maybe that will
> change by the time Intrepid is released.
> 

The ath5k author now works for Atheros, so perhaps support for newer
chipsets will improve in time for Intrepid.

-- 
Tim Gardner tim.gardner at ubuntu.com