2015-10-23 11:18:47

by Larry Finger

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: staging/rtl8723au should be removed

On 10/23/2015 05:44 AM, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Support for RTL8723AU devices was added to
> wireless-drivers-next.git recently: https://marc.info/?l=linux-wireless&m=144541406318463
> commit: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/kvalo/wireless-drivers-next.git/commit/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl8xxxu/rtl8xxxu_regs.h?id=26f1fad29ad973b0fb26a9ca3dcb2a73dde781aa

The new driver is remarkable, but removal of the staging driver should not be
done quite yet.

The new one in the regular tree lacks a number of features. To quote from its
commit message "This driver is still under development, but has proven to be
very stable for me. It currently supports station mode only. It has support for
OFDM and CCK rates. It does lack certain features found in the staging driver,
such as power management, AMPDU, and 40MHz channel support. In addition it does
not support AD-HOC, AP, and monitor mode support at this point."

Larry



2015-10-23 14:02:18

by Jes Sorensen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: staging/rtl8723au should be removed

Larry Finger <[email protected]> writes:
> On 10/23/2015 05:44 AM, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Support for RTL8723AU devices was added to
>> wireless-drivers-next.git recently:
>> https://marc.info/?l=linux-wireless&m=144541406318463
>> commit:
>> https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/kvalo/wireless-drivers-next.git/commit/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtl8xxxu/rtl8xxxu_regs.h?id=26f1fad29ad973b0fb26a9ca3dcb2a73dde781aa
>
> The new driver is remarkable, but removal of the staging driver should
> not be done quite yet.
>
> The new one in the regular tree lacks a number of features. To quote
> from its commit message "This driver is still under development, but
> has proven to be very stable for me. It currently supports station
> mode only. It has support for OFDM and CCK rates. It does lack certain
> features found in the staging driver, such as power management, AMPDU,
> and 40MHz channel support. In addition it does not support AD-HOC, AP,
> and monitor mode support at this point."

I agree - it's too early to delete drivers/staging/rtl8723au at this
point. Just like it's too early to delete drivers/staging/rtl8192u.

There is monitor mode patches in my devel tree now, courtesy of Bruno
Randolf, so one of the features has gotten fixed. I also added 40MHz
support a while ago, maybe I forgot to remove that from the commit
message.

Cheers,
Jes