Return-path: Received: from mail-bw0-f213.google.com ([209.85.218.213]:50339 "EHLO mail-bw0-f213.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751672AbZFJDSI convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Tue, 9 Jun 2009 23:18:08 -0400 Received: by bwz9 with SMTP id 9so431506bwz.37 for ; Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:18:09 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <69e28c910906090426l4c383665rdc4bffc501085661@mail.gmail.com> References: <3ace41890906081659o23cb9ee1sd82ca4fc28a3793d@mail.gmail.com> <69e28c910906090426l4c383665rdc4bffc501085661@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:18:09 +0100 Message-ID: <3ace41890906092018o76b0ee62n91819779a8ccd6db@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: Testing AP mode with WLAN-USB-Stick: How to obtain? From: Hin-Tak Leung To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=E1bor_Stefanik?= Cc: Stefan Steuerwald , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: 2009/6/9 G?bor Stefanik : > This will cause problems for power-saving clients, as the ZD1211 chip > has no multicast buffering feature, something that must be done in > hardware even for softmac cards. (Possibly this can be worked around > in the firmware, but so far, no firmware source code has been released > for the ZD1211/AR2524, only for the ZD1221/AR9170.) Can you elaborate a bit on that - e.g. reference to specific specs, or dicussions archived elsewhere? This has been mentioned a few times - I am just a bit curious. Granted that: (1) Zydas zd1211 is cheap (I know how much I paid for it - I bought it mostly for its price when I knew nothing about wireless devices and their differences) and is expected to be minimal hardware-wise; (2) having worked on the vendor driver, ported it forward to current kernels and fixes a couple of old and new bugs on the way, the quality/maintainability of the code isn't anywhere close to that of any active open-source projects with more than say, 5 active developers; (3) there are still known bugs - it certainly does *not* work correctly on 64-bit host, and not likely to work on non-[32-bit-intel] hosts; and some of its 'if KERNEL_VERSION()' defines are plain wrong... But I have been using vendor driver 3.0 for a few weeks in AP mode and I am as happy with it as I could be, I think; I have suspended//resumed clients. It works adequately. I'd like the rw driver to support AP mode eventually (although I have been told in no uncertain terms it is not going to happen; maybe only firmware change). Just for curiosity I might have a crack at the 64-bit host problem, but I'd like not to spend more effort on the vendor driver.