Re: Staging tree status for the .32 kernel merge

Stefan Lippers-Hollmann
2009-09-03T12:48:48Z

Hi

On Thursday 03 September 2009, Johannes Berg wrote:
> Hi Greg,
[...]
> > - at76_usb wireless driver. Again, no one working on it, it
> > will be dropped in .33.
>
> There's at76c...something...-usb now, with a situation similar to the
> ar9170/otus one.
[...]

at76c50x-usb, the mac80211 port of at76_usb, has been merged mainline in
2.6.30, it works well on two at76c503a devices for me.

Performance and features are comparable (there were WPA patches[1] around,
CCMP for at76c505 devices only, but due to stability issues with the newer
firmware, they weren't merged in staging or at76c50x-usb); both drivers
sport an identical device coverage. The 802.11b chipsets themselves are
no longer in production, but were rather common (also in handhelds) around
6-9 years ago. In their current state, at76_usb and at76c50x-usb are
restricted to WEP64/ 128 or unencrypted networks and work equally well
(at76c50x-usb without the strange quirks that happen with at76_usb).

AT76C503A specification summary:
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/1949S.PDF

AT76C505 specification summary:
http://www.atmel.com/atmel/acrobat/2364s.pdf

[1] Original WPA patches:
https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/at76c503a-develop/2008-May/000240.html

Regards
Stefan Lippers-Hollmann