From: Jim Thompson (jim_at_netgate.com)
Date: 2002-09-03 01:56:02 UTC
On Monday, September 2, 2002, at 12:17 PM, Jouni Malinen wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 29, 2002 at 11:22:06PM -0700, Jerritt Collord wrote:
>
>> Would perhaps the architecture of the hostap driver lend itself as a
>> reference for developing the Aetheros drivers?
>
> I do not know the details of Atheros hardware, but I would assume that
> it is quite a bit different from Prism2 as far as MAC--host interface
> is
> concerned. I would assume that it would use a much more efficient
> method
> for transfering frames between the card and host system (well, at least
> it better use or it won't see maximum 802.11a performance). Thus, at
> least the low-level Prism2-specific part should probably not be used as
> a reference.
I do know the details (I can't say much, its all under NDA). Yes,
its very different.
Yes, real DMA works (in both directions), and (yes, thank goodness) its
a whole
lot more like ye-olde-Ethernet chip driver, though you do get to deal
with 802.11
frames ala 'hostap', so these could be pushed to a user-level daemon.
Linux drivers exist. No, I can't give them to you (yet, perhaps).
Jim