PRISM2_NON_VOLATILE_DOWNLOAD in kernel 2.6.14

[Pavel Roskin]

Hello, David!

I see so many people answered your e-mail, but nobody seems to
understand your question.  That must be frustrating!

I posted a patch to the hostap mailing list that would allow flash
download in the kernel driver:
http://lists.shmoo.com/pipermail/hostap/2005-November/011871.html

I expected that somebody (most likely Jouni) would forward it further to
the netdev mailing list.  Since it didn't happen, I'm going to send the
patch directly.

I can tell with all certainty that instability of the flash download
code is a myth.  Since that code was fixed in October 2003 in version
v0.1.0, I flashed dozens of cards, such as true PCI, miniPCI and PCMCIA
using hostap_pci, hostap_plx and hostap_cs drivers.  I've never had any
problems with flashing.

In fact, if you check problem reports posted in the hostap list, most of
them are about using hostap to fix cards killed by DOS and Windows
utilities.

If you want a simple workaround without patching the kernel, add
PRISM2_NON_VOLATILE_DOWNLOAD to the compiler flags when compiling the
kernel modules:

make CC="gcc -DPRISM2_NON_VOLATILE_DOWNLOAD=1"

Please be advised that the CVS version of the hostap driver is broken
and crashes the kernel, as it was reported many times.  I think it
should be removed from CVS if it cannot be fixed.

Finally, Debian has nothing to do with it.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin