Re: [PATCH] mac80211: report operating frequency rather than current

[Fabio Rossi <rossi.f@inwind.it>]

On Monday 04 May 2009, John W. Linville wrote:

> On Mon, May 04, 2009 at 02:11:52PM -0400, Richard Farina wrote:
> > Johannes Berg wrote:
> >> Umm, if _you_ set channel 11 then you _will_ see channel 11. It's just
> >> that when it's scanning and happens to be on channel 132 instead of 11,
> >> while you previously set 11, you will _after_ this patch see 11, not
> >> 132.
> >
> > Yes, and at what point does it seem like a good idea to hide the channel
> > the wifi card is on?  If I set channel 11 and it is scanning instead of
> > locked on channel 11 then I should see the current channel the hardware
> > is on.  This seems like an aweful idea to me, granted, it may help a few
> > people that don't understand how scanning works, but hiding the truth is
> > never a good idea. NACK.
>
> I can see what you mean, but I think showing seemingly random
> fluctuations in channel assignments is at best distracting.  Don't you
> agree that most people are more interested in seeing the configuration
> state than the transient state of the hardware?

I want to report my experience. There was a bug in the ath5k driver with a 
hanging result during scanning mode. I was able to discover the problem 
thanks to the iwconfig output.

In alternative, is it possible to add a status flag so that iwconfig from user 
space can report scanning mode is operative?

Fabio