On 2/13/07, Michael Wu <flamingice@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tuesday 13 February 2007 14:37, Johannes Berg wrote: > > So this isn't really consistent. I'm unclear as to why the ipw cards > > need it on init rather than on dev open, but hey, why make things > > easier? > > When is ->init() called anyway? Isn't it when you register the netdev so > it would be on probe? > Yes, ipw2200 does it on probe... but I know it can be pushed off to open. I've done it. However.. I think intersil cards really need firmware to read the eeprom.
This is correct
prism54 currently sets a fake MAC address so they can push it off to open, but I think this is wrong.
This was suggested by Jean a long time ago after we asked for advice on what to do since we couldn't read the MAC before loading the firmware. Whatever we decide on we should standardize on it in case other new cards end up with same issue. One option was to have the probe() fail if no firmware was present but obviously this would force you to reload the module/reboot if you then get the firmware. We decided to leave the firmware upload on open() to overcome this but the problem then was the lack of a MAC address. Anyone know if wireless network devices the only ones requiring a firmware? If not then we should think of slapping something onto net_device. Otherwise we should distinguish the requirement on cfg80211_config so userspace tools know WTF is going on and inform the user appropriately. Luis - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
