Re: Announce: ndiswrapper

[Christian Axelsson <smiler@lanil.mine.nu>]

Maciej Zenczykowski wrote:
>>Pontus Fuchs wrote:
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>Since some vendors refuses to release specs or even a binary
>>>Linux-driver for their WLAN cards I desided to try to solve it myself by
>>>making a kernel module that can load Ndis (windows network driver API)
>>>drivers. I'm not trying to implement all of the Ndis API but rather
>>>implement the functions needed to get these unsupported cards working.
>>
>>Sounds like a plan!
> 
> 
> Definetely agree - question though, are you loading these drivers into 
> ring 0 (kernel space)?  As far as I know linux only supports ring 0 
> (kernel) and 3 (userspace).  However this would seem to be the perfect 
> place to load the binary modules in ring 1 (or even userspace if that was 
> possible...).  I can't say I trust any binary only and/or windows driver 
> to not make a mess of my kernel :)  actually the driver may actually be 
> errorless - it's just designed for a different operating system and thus 
> some unexplainable misshaps could easily happen...

There are development of a userspace driver API I think but I dont know 
the state of it nor the speed impacts.

> While we're at it, loading binary only modules into ring 1 would probably 
> also be a good idea for the NV module et al.  Although I have no idea how 
> hard it would be to make ring 1 function (and whether there actually is 
> any point to doing it in ring 1 instead of ring 3 with iopl/ioperm anyway) 
> and how big the performance penalty for non-ring 0 would be...

See above.

-- 
Christan Axelsson
smiler@lanil.mine.nu