[RFC] Inclusion of RT2860 driver

[Pete Graner]

Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> 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.
> 

Stefan,

Did you do a code audit? That would help us determine the quality of the 
code.

~pete

-- 
Pete Graner	<pgraner at canonical.com>