Comments to b43's wiki page plus recent changes

[Larry Finger]

On 06/19/2011 07:21 PM, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
> W dniu 20 czerwca 2011 02:07 użytkownik Larry Finger
> <Larry.Finger at lwfinger.net>  napisał:
>> On 06/19/2011 06:17 PM, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm getting uncomfortable with recent changes made to b43 wiki page
>>> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43
>>>
>>> First we got Stuart who felt it's necessary to explain that "partially
>>> supported" on b43's page means it's "partially supported by b43". It
>>> was so obvious to me I just reverted that change. He also linked to
>>> some discussion with random BCM4322 issue on 2.6.38 kernel. Well,
>>> support in 2.6.38 was highly experimental, it got many more issues, I
>>> don't think it makes any sense to display all of them. 2.6.39 is
>>> suggested, that's all.
>>>
>>> Today we got David Wang's modification. He wrote instruction how to
>>> check if firmware was installed. I've no idea what's unclear with
>>> messages like:
>>> "Cannot open input file
>>> broadcom-wl-5.10.56.27.3/driver/wl_apsta/wl_prebuilt.o"
>>> "failed to create output directory: Permission denied"
>>> ?
>>>
>>> Plus I found the following checks quite silly:
>>> ls -1 "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR"| grep b43| wc -1
>>> ls -1 "$FIRMWARE_INSTALL_DIR"/b43| wc -l
>>> "An output of>5 is good"
>>>
>>> It also adds twice info about LP-PHY which is already duplicated:
>>>>
>>>> Those of you who has bcm4315 (bcm4312 LP-PHY) and bcm4321 chipset, you
>>>> will need to make sure you enable PIO mode as DMA mode does not work with
>>>> your chipset. So instead of following the guide above you will need to do a
>>>> few more extra steps:
>>>
>>> (We inform about LP-PHY and DMA problems in known issues).
>>>
>>> Additionally it provides not working right-away instruction about
>>> switching to pio:
>>>>
>>>> modprobe -r b43
>>>> modprobe b43 pio=1
>>>> echo "options b43 pio=1">>    /etc/modprobe.d/options.conf
>>>
>>>
>>> Is it just me, or are that changes quite silly?
>>>
>>> Does anyone have contact to David Wang? He does not have his page on wiki.
>>
>> As my son in law keeps reminding me, "You cannot fix stupid." I'm always
>> assuming he is not referring to me! :)
>>
>> Along a similar vein, the helpers on the openSUSE forums are consistently
>> recommending that Broadcom users install wl and blacklist ssb and b43. I
>> have given up trying to overcome that issue. I feel that if people fall for
>> such bad info, then they deserve to have their wireless fail every time that
>> the kernel is updated, and that kernel developers will ignore the oops
>> reports coming from their tainted kernels.
>
> Thanks for answer.
>
>
>> You know as much or more than anyone about b43. Please make any cleanups
>> that you want on the wiki.
>
> Thanks, however I believe the worst thing is to assume "I do sth = I
> set the rules" and stop listening to the others. That's why I
> preferred to ask for opinion.

Don't worry. We will keep you straight!

Larry