On Sun, 2014-02-02 at 18:07 +0000, Stefan Lippers-Hollmann wrote: > Hi > > [ CC'ing the relevant parties ] > > On Sunday 02 February 2014, Dave Jones wrote: > > On Sun, Feb 02, 2014 at 03:41:27AM -0800, scan-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > > > > > > Please find the latest report on new defect(s) introduced to Linux found with Coverity Scan. > > > > > > Defect(s) Reported-by: Coverity Scan > > > Showing 20 of 83 defect(s) > > > > Ugh, this is even worse than the usual realtek drivers. (With the exception of rtl8188eu) > > All 83 of those new defects came from this new driver, and while there's > > a bunch of "who cares" type things in there, there's a load of stuff that > > needs fixing a lot more urgently than CodingStyle issues or anything else in the TODO > > for that driver. > > > > A bigger problem though, is what is the plan for these realtek drivers ? > > They've been in staging forever. rtl8187se has been there for _five_ years with > > no indication it's ever getting promoted to first class status. > > Actually rtl8187se (aka rtl8185b) seems to have gotten some attention > recently: > > http://lkml.kernel.org/r/CAN8YU5PGkx9s9deWpFTO_ZtDr-+wDD5cX2JRv1zd1m1Q0BpkCw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > > The git logs are littered mostly with CodingStyle cleanups, sparse cleanups and such, > > meanwhile for five years they've had out of bounds reads, overflows, and such > > for this whole time. Even worse, when one of the drivers gets fixes for actual > > problems like this, they never make it back to Realtek, who clone the same > > old shitty driver they shipped last time, and reintroduce new variants of the > > same damn bugs, and then we import the new turd into staging and start all over again. > > > > I get the whole "a shit driver is better than no driver", but there's no discernable > > effort to ever improve this pile, just to keep adding to it. > > > > Dave > > I think there are mostly two major problems with these drivers, besides > RealTek still working on a non-mac80211 codebase for USB based devices. > > The sheer number of slightly different RealTek drivers for similar > chipsets, for which RealTek as forked off a dedicated driver each, > rather than extending the existing ones. With the other, probably even > larger, problem being that it isn't possible to port wireless drivers > from non-mac80111 to mac80211 in a gradual fashion, it's always a > parallel re-implementation. Just look at the recent history of staging > wireless drivers: > > the successful ones: > - csr --> /dev/null > - otus --> ar9170 --> carl9170 > - ( rt2870 && rt3070 ) --> rt2800usb > - rt2870 --> rt2800pci > - [ at76c503a --> ] at76_usb --> at76c50x-usb [*] not in staging > > the pending ones > - rtl8187se [ --> rtl8180 ] [*] hopefully soon > - rtl8188eu --> ? > - [ rtl8192du --> ? ] [*] not in staging, [1] > - rtl8192e --> ? > - rtl8192u --> ? > - rtl8192su --> rtl8712 --> ? [ r92su[2] would add cfg80211 support, > but it being a fullmac like > re-implementation doesn't get it > anywhere ] > - rtl8821ae [ --> mac80211 port planned for 3.15[3]? ] > > these devices are, besides rtl8187se (802.11g) and rtl8821ae > (802.11ac), all 802.11n compatible, but were quickly EOLed by the > vendor, probably making it hard to get enough traction for a proper > mac80211 port. Coincidentally these chipsets are also very popular, > rtl8187se being the chipset of the early netbook craze, rtl8188eu > pretty ubiquitous on embedded platforms, the others making the bulk > of aftermarket USB devices. > > ancient hardware, probably not going anywhere: The below devices are still been sold new > - vt6655 --> ? > - vt6656 --> ? to mac80211 I have already done the conversion, just some minor things todo LED/ host implementation Should be ready to merge next + 3-4. I will update the TODO file shortly. > - wlags49_h2 --> ? > - wlags49_h25 --> ? > - wlan-ng --> ? > > This likely leaves staging wireless drivers to small corrections and > bugfixes. In the hope that the devices will get enough traction that > someone takes up the effort of doing a parallel re-implementation of a > proper mac80211 based driver, using the staging source only as > reference. > For my part, it is an educational exercise. However, I do wonder why I don't simply submit a new driver. There is very little of the staging code left. Regards Malcolm -- 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
