On Thu, Aug 06, 2009 at 05:14:01AM -0400, Orcan Ogetbil wrote: > On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 4:58 AM, drago01 wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Orcan Ogetbil wrote: > >> > >> I maintain those drivers at RPMFusion. I will be happy beyond > >> imagination when the staging drivers are marked stable. > > > > They won't ever (the rtxxxx Vendor drivers) > > > > >From my understanding, the staging tree of the kernel contains drivers > that are being prepared to be included in the main kernel tree[1]. > Correct me if I'm wrong. You are essentially wrong. The drivers in the staging tree may or may not make their way to the main kernel. I'm sure Greg and others hope that they will, and at least some of them probably will. Unfortunately, none of the wireless drivers there appear likely to do that. Beyond the normal atrociousness of the code common to nearly all of the vendor-supplied staging drivers, the wireless drivers also tend to ignore the wireless infrastructure supplied upstream. This includes both the mac80211 component of "soft MAC" devices and the cfg80211 configuration component for all wireless devices. As a community, we are refusing to accept drivers that duplicate the mac80211 functionality and now we are requiring the use of cfg80211 for new drivers as well. We simply can't afford to support multiple implementations of the "soft MAC" functionality and the older 'wireless extensions' API is too broken and bug-ridden for continued promulgation. The drivers in staging are best used as a guide to the workings of the hardware. I understand your desire for rt2860 and other devices to be supported, but the staging drivers just aren't acceptable. I would encourage you to put your efforts towards improving the rt2x00 driver family instead of propping-up the drivers in staging. Hth! John -- John W. Linville Linux should be at the core linville@xxxxxxxxxx of your literate lifestyle. -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
