[PATCH 2.6] Intersil Prism54 wireless driver

[Pavel Roskin]

On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Jim Thompson wrote:

> > The important difference is that "ARM/whatever" is firmware that works
> > on the card, while the "x86 binary part" is linked into the driver and
> > runs as part of the kernel.
>
> I'm sorry, I just don't follow this.

I mean, it matters where the code runs, not what architecture it was
compiled for.

> > This makes it impossible to compile madwifi for non-Intel
> > architectures, including ARM, PowerPC and AMD64.  This is a major
> > drawback, especially if you consider embedded applications.
>
> Its just 'C' code.

madwifi as distributed is not just C code, and I cannot compile it:

$ make
[snip]
uudecode < ../hal/linux/i386-elf.hal.o.uu
/lib/modules/2.6.4-rc2-bk1/build/scripts/modpost
/lib/modules/2.6.4-rc2-bk1/build/vmlinux ah_osdep.o
gcc -c -o ah_osdep.mod.o -include ../include/compat.h -I../include
-I/lib/modules/2.6.4-rc2-bk1/build/include/asm/mach-default -I../hal
-I../hal/linux -I../ath_hal -I/lib/modules/2.6.4-rc2-bk1/build/include
-I.. -D__KERNEL__ -DMODULE -DKBUILD_BASENAME=ath_hal
-DKBUILD_MODNAME=ath_hal -Wall -g -O -fomit-frame-pointer ah_osdep.mod.c
ld -o ath_hal.ko -r -x ah_osdep.o hal.o ah_osdep.mod.o
ld: hal.o: Relocations in generic ELF (EM: 3)
hal.o: could not read symbols: File in wrong format
make[1]: *** [ath_hal.ko] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/madwifi-20030802/ath_hal'
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/madwifi-20030802/wlan'
make[1]: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/madwifi-20030802/wlan'
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/madwifi-20030802/driver'
make[1]: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/madwifi-20030802/driver'
$ uname -a
Linux auk 2.6.4-rc2-bk1 #7 Wed Mar 10 04:47:57 EST 2004 ppc GNU/Linux

I just tried to counter the notion that having a binary module makes the
Atheros driver or chipset superior in any way.  Sorry if I was unclear.
I'm not interested in further discussion.  I'll try to avoid such topics
in the future.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin