[PATCH 2.6] Intersil Prism54 wireless driver

[Jim Thompson]

On Mar 10, 2004, at 10:58 PM, vda wrote:

> On Thursday 11 March 2004 06:11, Jim Thompson wrote:
>> madwifi already put a generic 802.11 stack in linux.
>
> It's not in Linus tree, and will have hard time merging
> due to binary-only part.
>
> Actually from technical perspective I like Atheros
> hardware. Since it uses *x86* binary part, not
> ARM/whatever,

Its been compiled for a number of architectures: 386-elf,  
mipsisa32-le-elf, mipsisa32-be-elf,
	xscale-be-elf, arm9-le-thumb-elf, powerpc-le-eabi, powerpc-be-eabi

I've seen the HAL code, and there's nothing linux-specific inside.

> I conclude it allows host CPU more
> control over inner workings of the card. Interesting ;)

You are correct, you don't even have to send 802.11 frames, unless you  
want them.  The HAL will happily xmit whatever bit pattern you like.

> If only Atheros was willing to release the code.

Indeed, but unlikely.    
http://ftp.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Orders/2001/ 
fcc01264.pdf

> What is your experience with this driver?

I build products with it, both for Netgate as well as other companies.

> What card do you use?

The one's we sell, mostly.   I've used netgear and dlink cards as well.

Jim