USB support

[Dan Williams]

On Sun, 2008-07-06 at 09:08 +0300, Jouni Malinen wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 05:48:52PM -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> 
> > That would be great.  Using mac80211 will also provide AP and WPA
> > support.  I think the device will need to run in HostAP mode all the
> > time.  Then it will be able to send any packets without the firmware
> > interfering.  The hostap driver can actually associate to another AP as
> > a station while acting as an AP.
> 
> Prism2/2.5/3 Host AP mode is not that flexible.. Yes, some firmware
> versions allow manual association as a client in that mode, but all
> recent ones do not. Furthermore, power saving would not work and I would
> expect there to be number of other issues. I would not waste time trying
> to get that working and would just stick to using the designed station
> (i.e., non-Host AP) mode for all client operation. This does not work
> well with the current mac80211, though.

Can you give a quick overview of what the issues might be with using STA
mode and a hypothetical mac80211 Prism USB driver?

> Unless mac80211 is extended to support full MAC type of client
> operations, I would expect Prism2.5/3 USB support with mac80211 to be
> limited to an AP mode only. Whether there is really enough interest for
> doing a low-level driver for just that is an open question; personally,
> I would see much better uses for one's time..

I'm a bit confused now; the above seems to contradict the first
paragraph of your reply.  ie "just stick to using the designed station
mode for all client operation" contradicts "I would expect Prism2.5/3
USB support with mac80211 to be limited to AP mode only".  Clarify
please? :)

Dan