[Prism54-devel] Prism54 development update

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

[ I'm cross-posting to ensure everyone gets this as this
  involves both users and developmnt. Please keep 
  development talks on prism54-devel and user-related talk on
  prism54-users ]

Hi all,

It's been a while since a new release but we're close to completing our
driver todo list. Here's an update as to where we are.

This is our todo list:

Use devtodo package to read this:
http://prism54.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/trunk/ksrc/.todo

1.complete WPA STA support
2.Fix WPA AP support
3.review all current bugs/fix
4.when driver is more stable get rid of some bloated debugging stuff
5.move to netif_msg, away from our nasty debug system
6.add USB support

Item 1 - complete WPA STA support
---------------------------------
I've tried hard to get item 1 completed but unfortunately we lack
proper documentation to advance further. Most of my latest work involves
painful trial-and-error. The code is there though and I think only a few
things needs fixing.. someone who's done this before on a windows driver
and has documentation should review the code and send a final patch.

Item 2 - Fix WPA AP support
---------------------------
This has been pretty much completed thanks to Bell Kin and his team! There's a
pending patch I have to apply that I will try later. We then just need
to test this. This includes Repeater mode.

Item 3 - review all current bugs/fix
------------------------------------
You know the drill.

Item 4 - when driver is more stable get rid of some bloated debugging stuff
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have tons of debugging nonsense in the driver. Once we've knocked out
some bugs we can get rid of some debugging code.

Item 5 -- move to netif_msg, away from our nasty debug system
-------------------------------------------------------------
This is related to Item 4, and moving to netif_msg can start the work
of cleaning up our debugging code.

Item 6 - add USB support
------------------------
There's been a lot of work here lately. This is great! We will only be
able to support Prism Frisbee chipsets though. This is a difficult task
as we have no docs and AFAICT there is not even a windows driver out
there that uses the old firmware so we'd be the first. Jean and Feyd
have been following up on this.

-------------

As far as support for the new chipsets goes -- sorry -- we won't be able
to support it as I don't think even Conexant has a final well tested
linux source base ready for 2.6. And even if we are given a source base
there is nothing we can do to get around the need for the closed-source 
softmac libs that it relies on. As much as I'd like to support it, I
don't want to get a headache to support something I cannot modify so I
won't be willing to support a half-opened driver as the atheros driver.

In regards to our talks with Conexant for the firmware:

They have given us a click-through license for the firmware. It seems
its final -- nothing we can do about it. I'll soon fwd it for comment.

------

Please note that AFAICT only a few places are now selling Prism FullMAC
chipsets so watch out what you buy. Please make sure you check the FCC
ID first and make sure it matches the FCC ID listed our our supported
cards page (coming soon). For those of you out of the US -- anyone have
any idea what you can use to track the specific model?

It'd be nice if we had a 100% reliable vendor that sells FullMAC
chipset-carsd. Anyone know of one? If you are a vendor please let me
know and I will list you on our page. We linux users want these cards
and we will buy them from you ;)

	Luis

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