[ECOS] Orinoco Wavelan Driver

[ECOS] Orinoco Wavelan Driver

[Trenton D. Adams]

Ok, I'm in the process of getting Agere/Orinoco to port their HCF Light
library for their wireless network cards to eCos.  They seem to finally
be cooperating since I talked to the "World Wide Sales Director.  I'm
not sure exactly what they will be doing yet, but I might just see if
they could do a support contract with RedHat, and get it done ASAP.
After all, I'm sure that if they worked with the eCos maintainers that
it would go a lot better.  We'll see.

For now they want me to send them as much information about what they
might need to get the HCF ported to eCos.  So, I'm going to describe to
them the Generic PCMCIA API in pcmcia.c first.  I would appreciate any
suggestions about what I should be sending to them.

Also, I'm wondering about what sort of support contract they might need
for this.  If I had more details, I could talk to them about it.  So,
could one of the maintainers let me know about the support options?

Trenton D. Adams
Embedded Developer
Windows Developer
Extreme Engineering Ltd.
Calgary Alberta.

Re: [ECOS] Orinoco Wavelan Driver

[Nick Clarey]

Howdy,

> For now they want me to send them as much information about what they
> might need to get the HCF ported to eCos.  So, I'm going to describe to
> them the Generic PCMCIA API in pcmcia.c first.  I would appreciate any
> suggestions about what I should be sending to them.

Ummm. Before you do, 3G Lab have been working on a better PCMCIA 
abstraction layer (something more like Card Services - though still not, 
if that makes sense) that will keep drivers entirely separate from the 
underlying PCMCIA socket. Basically, this has meant rewriting large 
sections of the PCMCIA material.

I was going to keep this internally until we had all the material working 
properly, but if you're planning on paying cash for someone to port stuff 
over to it, then perhaps it would be better to try to get this (somewhat) 
accepted in it's current state...

The main current limitation is that it doesn't support RedBoot (i.e. 
non-KERNEL network support), though this shouldn't be too hard to add. 
Would Red Hat be willing to take a look at this and adjudge it's 
suitability for inclusion?

Oh, and before you go out and blow too much money, I'm currently about 
halfway through writing a driver for the Symbol Spectrum24 PC card; in 
case you were willing to consider an alternative to the one you're trying 
to write.

See ya,

Nick
-- 
Nick Clarey, System Architect        | "Sometimes when you fill a vacuum,
3G LAB                               |  it still sucks."  - Rob Pike
ph 44-1223-478900 fax 44-1223-478901 |

Re: [ECOS] Orinoco Wavelan Driver

[Jonathan Larmour]

Nick Clarey wrote:
> 
> The main current limitation is that it doesn't support RedBoot (i.e.
> non-KERNEL network support), though this shouldn't be too hard to add.
> Would Red Hat be willing to take a look at this and adjudge it's
> suitability for inclusion?

Obviously it would be hard to include something that is missing such an
important feature as RedBoot support, at least if it is intended to
obsolete the existing support. But since I imagine it should be easy to add
a polling interface, just like the current one, I'm sure you can resolve
that easily enough. Obviously either the existing drivers would need to be
moved over, or it should be possible for the two systems to co-exist.

We will certainly try and include it if it's useful. But the implication is
that it's still work in progress. It would probably be simpler for everyone
if it's only added when it's completed or nearly completed. If you want to
put up an EPK/patchset we can make that available easily enough, although
you'd probably prefer http://www.3glab.org/ I'd imagine.

Jifl
-- 
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Re: [ECOS] Orinoco Wavelan Driver

[Nick Clarey]

Howdy,

> Obviously it would be hard to include something that is missing such an
> important feature as RedBoot support, at least if it is intended to
> obsolete the existing support. But since I imagine it should be easy to add
> a polling interface, just like the current one, I'm sure you can resolve
> that easily enough. 

I agree, hence why I hadn't mentioned it up to this point. There is 
actually a polling interface, but it's just that I haven't added the 
suitable #defines and tested it to verify performance when running under 
RedBoot. To get that stuff ready will probably be a few more weeks.

> Obviously either the existing drivers would need to be
> moved over, or it should be possible for the two systems to co-exist.

It would be more of a "move over". I can't see it being pleasant trying to 
get the two to co-exist. I'm just a bit concerned that the longer it stays 
out of CVS, the harder it will be for people working on existing PCMCIA 
drivers (there seem to be a few) and the more divergence occurs :-<

> We will certainly try and include it if it's useful. But the implication is
> that it's still work in progress. It would probably be simpler for everyone
> if it's only added when it's completed or nearly completed. If you want to
> put up an EPK/patchset we can make that available easily enough, although
> you'd probably prefer http://www.3glab.org/ I'd imagine.

Sure. I'll see about getting up at least the new interfaces by middle of 
next week sometime, to help people writing existing PCMCIA card drivers. 
As I said earlier, it's going to be at least a few more weeks before 
everything is in a state suitable for public consumption...

See ya,

Nick

-- 
Nick Clarey, System Architect        | "Sometimes when you fill a vacuum,
3G LAB                               |  it still sucks."  - Rob Pike
ph 44-1223-478900 fax 44-1223-478901 |