Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Linux Incompatibility List | From | Gianni Tedesco <> | Date | Sun, 29 Aug 2004 04:21:41 +0100 |
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On Sat, 2004-08-28 at 21:42 -0400, Andrew Miklas wrote: > (Sorry for the long delay...)
Thats OK.
> Yeah, we tried that at first too (actually, we were using Frank Cornelis' > patches to Bochs). The problem with dumping all the PCI activity (even while > the interface isn't sending/receiving) is that there is a huge amount of data > to sift through. Even capturing for just a for a few seconds generates > megabytes of data. You also have to deal with various events (like the > watchdog timer) going off at random times and getting mixed in with the > send/receive data. We also found DMA a little tricky too (ie. you need to > dump out any data that the chip will bus-master to itself to see how it is > structured).
OK, exactly which drivers were you using to do this? When I had the interface brought up in win2k-server with the bcmwl5.sys driver I was seeing every few hundred milliseconds a batch of say 12 2-byte reads on the register space to check status...
> Also, we figured it would cause problems for supporting the whole range of > devices that can be handled by the wl.o drivers. For example, from looking > at the module, we can see that the driver will have somewhat different > behaviour according to exactly what MAC and radio chips are present, the > interface being used (ie. PCI, cardbus, etc.), the vendor, model number, and > revision of the board itself, the contents of the ROM, etc. We decided that > there was simply too many combinations to make the data capture approach > useful over the entire range of Broadcom hardware, unless you repeat the > process on every variation.
Hrm, you're sure those variations aren't trivial? Although theres lots of checks, I would have thought they would just be stuff like "card A supports X, Y and Z features"?
The approach that makes the most sense to me is get 1 card working to the point where it sends/receives packets, then look at the binaries to see what the variations are, and how they apply to what cards and just go fill in the blanks...
> > Anyway, perhaps once I've had some time to make a little more progress > > we would be able to compare some notes? > > Sure, let me know when you're ready.
I just need to improve logging support in my pciproxy patch and setup a 2nd machine with a working wireless card, then I can start in earnest.
Also, you mention DMA and sending/receiving packets, exactly how much progress have you made so far?
-- // Gianni Tedesco (gianni at scaramanga dot co dot uk) lynx --source www.scaramanga.co.uk/scaramanga.asc | gpg --import 8646BE7D: 6D9F 2287 870E A2C9 8F60 3A3C 91B5 7669 8646 BE7D [unhandled content-type:application/pgp-signature] | |