Thanks for the information !<br><br>So the mac80211 subsystems could be utilized as a (driver) API to develop a driver for a given chipset?<br><br>And what kind of details one would need to develop the driver using mac80211?<br>
<br>- Paresh<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 6:15 PM, Dan Williams <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dcbw@redhat.com">dcbw@redhat.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 10:58 +0530, Paresh Sawant wrote:<br>
> Hi,<br>
><br>
> What is the difference in mac80211 and ieee80211 subsystems?<br>
<br>
</div>mac80211 is a softmac stack, it performs all 802.11 management and data<br>
functions in software.<br>
<br>
ieee80211 is more of a helper library and doesn't implement much of the<br>
management function in software, leaving stuff like auth/assoc,<br>
beaconing, etc to the firmware. As such, it's kind of "halfmac".<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> In future, nl80211 is going to replace the wext, then what is going to<br>
> be the underneath subsystem?<br>
<br>
</div>nl80211/cfg80211 will replace wext, yes. They are independent of the<br>
underlying 802.11 stack, but are simply a mechanism to *configure* the<br>
parameters of that stack. As such, nl80211/cfg80211 can be used with<br>
any driver. There are proof-of-concept cfg80211 patches for orinoco<br>
cards (really popular old FullMAC cards) already, and it's expected that<br>
most of the drivers in the kernel will be ported over to cfg80211<br>
eventually.<br>
<br>
This will provide a consistent configuration interface, which is the<br>
huge problem with WEXT. Every driver implements WEXT a little<br>
differently, leading to tons of workarounds in wifi control programs<br>
like wpa_supplicant and NetworkManager. cfg80211 will fix all that by<br>
providing a WEXT compatbility layer, so all drivers that use cfg80211<br>
will work pretty much the same.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Dan<br>
<br>
<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br>