Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add prism 2/3 usb adaptor firmware for use with
 staging/wlan-ng driver.
From: Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>
To: "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@gmail.com>
Cc: Karl Relton <karllinuxtest.relton@ntlworld.com>,
	dwmw2@infradead.org, linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org
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Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:22:37 -0400
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On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 10:14 -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

> Can you elaborate on this a little. Does the driver currently take the
> srec file, append/prepend some data onto it and then run it on the
> target CPU?

Some data in the srec file is replaced by the data read from the card
(so called plug data area, or PDA).  "Plugging" refers to that process.

> > , so pre-compilation would have meant
> > inventing both a compiler tool and an intermediate format for the driver
> > to read and process.
> 
> The srec->binary conversion just needs to be done once, and not sure
> what the "extra" stuff is that you mention is required, but if its
> always the same can't that just be put into a final binary file?

We can use the same format as Spectrum firmware used in spectrum_cs, and
reuse its parser/plugger.  Spectrum and Prism chipsets are related and
use the same idea of plugging, but Prism firmware is distributed as srec
files, whereas Spectrum firmware is cut from binary drivers as a binary.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin