Return-path: Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.174]:5924 "EHLO ug-out-1314.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752009AbXB0SzO (ORCPT ); Tue, 27 Feb 2007 13:55:14 -0500 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id 44so1197451uga for ; Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:55:13 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <43e72e890702271055sc1525ecy54870626125a7fae@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 13:55:07 -0500 From: "Luis R. Rodriguez" To: "Jiri Benc" Subject: Re: Patch to allow specification of interface name prefix Cc: "Stephen Hemminger" , "Larry Finger" , "Pavel Roskin" , "Alex Davis" , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, "John W. Linville" In-Reply-To: <20070227111644.784600be@logostar.upir.cz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed References: <510326.55988.qm@web50211.mail.yahoo.com> <20070224233001.3ok4k0c00ksos4sw@webmail.spamcop.net> <45E112F7.9090908@lwfinger.net> <20070226150241.1b5b63b2@freekitty> <20070227111644.784600be@logostar.upir.cz> Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On 2/27/07, Jiri Benc wrote: > [removed bcm43xx-dev list] > > On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:02:41 -0800, Stephen Hemminger wrote: > > This was hashed out on netdev 2+ years ago and decided that both ethernet > > and wireless devices should show up as 'eth%d'. For inclusion d80211 needs to conform > > to existing mainline kernel practice. If this means breaking the expectation of older > > out of tree wireless support (ie madwifi), sorry. > > Decided? I remember just you and hch saying "all existing wireless drivers > do that, so everybody should". When pointing out that just two drivers do > that (I think ipw and prism) and everybody else use something different > (wlan%d most often) there was no reply. "ipw and one other driver do that > so everybody should" doesn't sound like a strong argument to me. > > Wireless devices need different handling (setting SSID, etc.) than Ethernet > ones. I think it's not so bad idea to show that difference by using a > different default name. Everybody else who is in some kind different from > Ethernet use different name than eth%d. I think we should conform to > existing mainline practice by using something different than eth%d too. FWIW I remember the discussion too and it wasn't something very settling. One main reason to keep eth%d convention was the fact that the wireless net devices at that time (FullMAC) handled and managed raw ethernet frames and not wireless frames and as such its relfected with eth%d convention. This was the main reasoning for prism54 to adopt eth%d convention. With SoftMAC (mac80211) things are a bit different -- wmaster handles 802.11 frames and wlan%d handles 802.3 frames. The name does not matter much but it does imply at least that I think. As such perhaps mac80211 should change to use eth%d by default. Luis