Re: [PATCH] rt2x00: Provide regulatory hint with rt2500pci/usb

[Ivo van Doorn <ivdoorn@gmail.com>]

On Tuesday 06 January 2009, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 12:39:34PM -0800, Gertjan van Wingerde wrote:
> > On 01/06/09 18:47, Ivo van Doorn wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 06 January 2009, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > >
> > >> On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 09:32:20AM -0800, Ivo van Doorn wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>>>> 2. I'm still puzzled how to handle the two different values that the EEPROM has, namely one for the bg band and one for the a band. I've handled it by registering the one associated with the configured band, but that seems to be unlikely to be correct. I still haven't found a better way to handle this.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> Because of this I hadn't looked very deep into rt61 and rt73 yet.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> The problem isn't there for the bits that Ivo sent, as the rt2500 devices don't support the a band.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>> For rt2500pci and rt2500usb there are chipsets which support 5GHz (they are rare, but they do exist),
> > >>>>> comments for the Ralink drivers indicate they simply didn't add the regulatory domain definitions yet.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>> Based on the documentation from the EEPROM for all devices I read that its recommended
> > >>>> that the EEPROM *not be relied on for the regulatory domain*, instead it recommends the
> > >>>> windows registry be used.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Based on tests for the devices with only one band, do are you seeing an actual regulatory
> > >>>> domain in the EEPROM?
> > >>>>
> > >>> I have to check, but I don't think I have any hardware with valid domain values.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>> To deal with the issue of having two separate EEPROM values for a regulatory domain
> > >>>> and since the documentation indicates to not rely on it I would advise to allow users
> > >>>> to be compliant by selecting the country they are in. wpa_supplicant has support for
> > >>>> selecting country now, and so does iw. Eventually I see Network Manager letting users
> > >>>> select the country. But you guys are the maintainers and developers so you will know
> > >>>> better.
> > >>>>
> > >>> Well it is fine with me,  understood from earlier discussion that it was advised that drivers
> > >>> attempted to set the domain if they could. Hence the reason I had added reading the EEPROM
> > >>> for domain values to the TODO list. But it is true that it is quite rare that there are valid values
> > >>> for it. So it would be fine with me by letting the user handle it completely.
> > >>>
> > >> I see -- well if there are *some* cards that do have valid EEPROM values then it seems worth it
> > >> to do the actual regulatory_hint(), for dual band cards you can probably just not support it. But
> > >> its up to you guys. Just my advice based on the documentation I have read so far.
> > >>
> > >
> > > Ok.
> > >
> > > Gertjan, do you know if there is any hardware with valid GEO data in the EEPROM?
> > >
> > 
> > As mentioned in my previous email, I do have devices that have valid GEO
> > data in the EEPROM. So, we should be able to use that.
> > Also, for the dual band cards, it does seem that at least the numerical
> > values are similar for both bands (although I'm not sure that same
> > numerical values means same regulatory domain). This is at least the
> > case on all the cards that I own.
> 
> If that's the case and since dual band cards will most likely have 2ghz support
> why not just provide regulatory_hint() based on the 2ghz band all the time?

Sounds like the most reasonable solution to me as well.

Ivo