Re: [Madwifi-devel] Survey: What are you using MadWifi for, and why?

[David Acker <dacker@roinet.com>]

Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 1:44 PM, David Acker <dacker@roinet.com> wrote:
>> It is a non-802.11s protocol that predates 802.11s development by quite
>> awhile.  It runs over WDS links.  In theory it could run over anything that
>> supports dynamic creation and destruction of WDS links.
> 
> So its a some sort of MadWifi-only hack?

Not at all.  The algorithm runs in user space and has run over other 
radio/driver combinations and even in networks of mixed radio types.  I 
don't see a problem with running it over ath5k.  Basic functionality 
should work fine.

The problem with switching to ath5k would be the loss of performance 
related features (compression, fast frames, turbo), and some required 
features (half/quarter rates are required for some channels on some 
radios).  Also, I don't know if ath5k will work on products based on 
Atheros WiSOCs like Ubiquiti's PicoStation and Bullet.  A lesser issue 
(more of a pain for me than an ath5k issue) is that I have some 
platforms that use an older kernel and moving up to a newer kernel will 
have to be done without hardware vendor support.

-ack