[RFC] Inclusion of RT2860 driver

[Stefan Bader]

Pete Graner wrote:
> 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
> 
No, not yet. I just scanned over the readme file and the patches and checked
whether there really are references into /etc. But I will gather a few more
details.

Stefan

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