Re: ipw2100: firmware problem

Pavel Machek
2005-06-08T20:33:27Z

Hi!

> > Do you want to associate to an AP when your kernel boots,
> > _before_ any iwconfig had a chance to configure anything?
> > That's strange.
> >
> > My position is that wifi drivers must start up in an "OFF" mode.
> > Do not send anything. Do not join APs or start IBSS.
>
> Agreed.

Me too ;-).

> > Thus, no need to load fw in early boot.
>
> I don't think this is true. Loading the firmware on the first
> "ifconfig up" is problematic. Often, people want to rename the
> device from ethX/wlanX/... to something stable. This is usually
> based on the adapter's MAC address, which is not visible until
> the firmware is loaded.
>
> Prism54 does it this way and it really sucks. You need to bring
> the adapter up to load the firmware, then bring it back down,
> rename it, and bring it up again.
>
> Denis: any plans for this to be fixed?
>
> I agree that drivers should initialize the adapter in the OFF
> state, but the firmware needs to be loaded earlier than the
> first ifconfig up.
>
> How about loading the firmware when the first ioctl touches the
> device? This way, it would get loaded just before the MAC address
> is retrieved.

Thats really ugly :-(.

Pavel
--
64 bytes from 195.113.31.123: icmp_seq=28 ttl=51 time=448769.1 ms