Bug 10730 – ebuild for the atmel wlan driver (new package)

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

[Description Wolfgang Pichler 2002-11-14 05:21:52 UTC]

i think it should be a big problem to integrate the atmel wlan driver into
gentoo as already done for the linux-wlan-ng project. The only thing that should
be done is to make a ebuild which manages to compile the driver against the
gentoo sources (the compile clean - I've already tryied it).

[Comment 1 Wolfgang Pichler 2002-11-14 05:29:09 UTC]

i meant: it shouldn't be a big problem - not it should be! Type Error - forgive
me ;-)

[Comment 2 Martin Holzer (RETIRED) 2003-09-03 10:50:15 UTC]

please create an ebuild and attach it here

[Comment 3 Warp Zero (RETIRED) 2003-12-30 14:13:14 UTC]

http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net/

Does anybody have one of these?

[Comment 4 Thomas Mueller 2004-05-06 09:03:59 UTC]

Created attachment 30859 [details]
two submitted ebuilds

[Comment 5 Thomas Mueller 2004-05-06 09:05:10 UTC]

Comment on attachment 30859 [details]
two submitted ebuilds

see my comment to bug

[Comment 6 Thomas Mueller 2004-05-06 09:53:02 UTC]

The ebuilds just submitted (file atmel-ebuilds.tgz; 2004-05-06) are based on the following considerations:

1) kernel modules for ATMEL wlan cards are available from sourceforge as noted previously, but are also included in kernel 2.6. 

2) The modules included with kernel 2.6 lack the necessary firmware to operate the cards (at least for the on I have).

3) Both module packages seem to lack some capability for scanning site access points, for example, with gtkskan. However, the sourceforge package contains a special command line utility that works for these drivers and cards.

I have, therefore, written ebuilds for both:

atmlwlandriver-3.2.4.4: This is the latest version of the drivers available from sourceforge. This, together with kernel 2.6.5, is currently the only combination that works for my PCMCIA card in a satisfactory way. But there are several problems left. Kernel 2.6 refuses to load the PCI driver of this package. The USB drivers aren't working either because I don't know the appropriate USB configuration. Also, I don't have either PCI or USB hardware to test. The package should work for kernel 2.4, but I can't test that because I am experiencing problems with the PCMCIA core under kernel 2.4.25

atmel-firmware-0.7: This ebuild incorporates a firmware package that complements the atmel drivers included with kernel 2.6. On my machine, everything works nicely (card is recognized, driver is loaded, correct firmware is loaded, LED on card lights up...) until you actually want to attach to an access point.... I don't think that this problem is related to the ebuild. Either, there is a bug in the driver or the firmware, or else, I am making some stupid mistake in using the iw* tools.

The sourceforge driver looks pretty messy and may not have a long life. On the other hand, the kernel 2.6-driver doesn't seem to be quite up to par, yet. In any case, I hope that either or both ebuilds may be of some help to others.

[Comment 7 Kalin KOZHUHAROV 2004-06-18 09:27:05 UTC]

Well, there is already a 3.3.5.6 version out...

Any plans to update the ebuilds? I tried but the patches are too big and Makefile is quite changed anyway. Now they support 2.6 series as well.

Will anybody finally include this in the source tree so it can get some more user testing?

[Comment 8 Martin Baute 2004-10-15 02:33:39 UTC]

> Does anybody have one of these?

I have no experience in *writing* ebuilds, but I have not one but *two* affected devices connected to my Gentoo boxes (SMC 2632W-V2 PCMCIA, Belkin F5D6050 USB) and would be willing to give an updated ebuild some field testing.

[Comment 9 Stefan Schweizer (RETIRED) 2004-11-28 07:20:12 UTC]

Is there still initerest in adding this driver-ebuild?
(will you test it when I write a new ebuild?)

[Comment 10 Klaus S. Madsen 2004-12-14 05:58:43 UTC]

I have recently tested this package, and it did not work any longer (it complains about sandbox violations). However the atmel-firmware package from Bug #52893, together with the in-kernel atmel driver works flawlessly.

[Comment 11 Stefan Schweizer (RETIRED) 2005-01-26 11:13:59 UTC]

Created attachment 49579 [details]
atmelwlandriver-3.4.1.0.ebuild

Working (at least compiling) ebuild, please test and comment

[Comment 12 Klaus S. Madsen 2005-01-26 11:37:20 UTC]

Is this really worth it? The 2.6 kernel contains an atmel driver, that works if  the atmel-firmware package is installed. AFAIK Gentoo 2005.0 will ship with 2.6 kernel as the default.

However I don't know if there are any cases where the atmelwlandriver works better than the in-kernel version.

On the other hand, the driver is not in 2.4, so it might be of use to those that do not wish to upgrade kernel.

[Comment 13 Stefan Schweizer (RETIRED) 2005-01-26 11:45:17 UTC]

then we will stick to the in-kernel version.

I will close this as WONTFIX