DWL-520 rev. E1 web page

Pavel Roskin proski at gnu.org
Tue Feb 3 02:32:58 EST 2004


On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, Andrew Barr wrote:

> I'm writing a web page detailing what I did to get my DWL-520 rev. E1
> on-line. It is almost ready, and for the interested it is online at
> http://home.columbus.rr.com/andrewbarr/dwl520e1.html. One thing that I need
> to know to finalize it is where readers can obtain the firmware I used.
> Right now, the page points them to Pavel Roskin's web site at red-bean.com.
> The station firmware archive there (specifically, 1.8.0.tar.gz) appears to
> have the right file, but it bothered me that .orig was appended to the
> firmware file name. I remember reading things about patched firmware, so I
> was afraid that that file would not work. Is this firmware file patched and
> if not where is the patched file at? Thanks.

I thought it would be obvious that the unpatched files end with ".orig",
but I have changed the README file inside 1.8.0.tar.gz so that it's stated
explicitly now.  It's a short file, so let me just quote the new version
here:

======================================
rf010800.hex and sf010800.hex are modified files.  rf010800.hex.orig and
sf010800.hex.orig are corresponding original versions.

There is only one modification.  The plug record 0x0413 has been removed
in both images.  The reason is that it pointed to an address outside the
areas where the firmware is loaded.  That is contrary to the Intersil
Reference Manual RM0251, part 8.2, which states that plug records should
be plugged in the firmware image before it's loaded into the card.

The goal of the modification is to make the firmware files compatible
with prism2_srec utility distributed as part of the Host AP Linux driver
<http://hostap.epitest.fi/>

No adverse effects have been attributed to this modification.  Once
prism2_srec is fixed to ignore or use the plug record 0x0413, the
modified firmware files will be removed and the original firmware files
will be distributed instead.
======================================

> Additionally, feedback on the web page--technically, grammatically, or
> otherwise, is welcome. Note, though, that the page features an rc.wlan
> script for automating the initialization of the card and network, and it
> is not online yet because I haven't finished making modifications to it.

You don't need "-i" when loading the primary firmware the second time.  I
posted a patch to make it unneeded, and it was applied.  Please replace
"-gip" with "-gp".

I don't think you should even discuss options that were present in CVS in
the past, such as no_primary (let alone write "ATTENTION" in all capitals
and red color).  Just require a CVS version of the driver after a certain
date.  There are more important things in the document that may require
attention from the reader.

The current stable version of Host AP is not 0.12, it's 0.1.2.

pm010102.hex is in primary.tar.gz and rf010800.hex is in 1.8.0.tar.gz.
You got it the other way around.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin



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