On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 2:52 AM, Michael Renzmann
<mrenzmann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi all.
As you might have noticed, there currently is a discussion [1] going on
about the future directions of the MadWifi project, including a decision
how to deal with MadWifi driver. It turns out that there are pretty
contrary positions in this regard: some would like to see MadWifi being
dumped completely as soon as possible, others would prefer to continue
development and even implement new features.
What do others think? It appears to me that we know too little about what
MadWifi is actually used for today and why. Thus I'd like to start a quick
survey.
It would be great if you could answer some or - ideally - all of the
following questions:
Personally, I would love to switch to ath5k but I am stuck using madwifi
due to a need for features that are missing on ath5k. I think the
issues I have are pretty common for the wireless router community. See
below for more details.
1. What are you using MadWifi for?
Wireless mesh on embedded systems.
2. Did you already evaluate ath5k/ath9k? If no, why not?
I have monitored the list and saw significant issues with ath5k in AP
mode early on. AP mode and WDS mode are the main modes we use. We
rarely need client mode. Also, folks seemed resistant to adding all the
features of madwifi to ath5k/mac80211.
3. In case you evaluated ath5k/ath9k but did not yet switch: what is the
reason for your decision, and what is required before you could switch?
ath5k has been missing features that madwifi has and was reported as
very unstable in AP mode in the past. In some platforms I must use
older kernels (2.6.18) due to limited kernel support from an embedded
hardware vendor. In some setups I need DFS support. I need multiple
SSID support with each SSID supporting different crypto settings and I
need hardware crypto support. These were all issues at different times.
Some of them may be resolved at this point but they all existed (or
seemed to exist to me) at one point and convinced me to avoid working on
switching from madwifi to ath5k.
There was a thread not too long ago (
http://marc.info/?l=linux-wireless&m=125152150203308&w=2 ) that
discussed some features that are in madwifi but not in ath5k. I would
love to see dynamic and static turbo modes supported in ath5k. Half and
quarter rates are required to use certain channels on devices from
Ubiquiti (XR7 and XR9 for example). Fast frames and hardware
compression can also improve performance in certain situations.
Also, support for WiSOCs like the PicoStation and Bullet from Ubiquiti
would be required to switch from madwifi on those platforms.
-ack
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