Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 31 Dec 2014 20:48:25 +0100 | From | Arend van Spriel <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] Revert "cfg80211: make WEXT compatibility unselectable" |
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On 12/31/14 16:14, Andreas Hartmann wrote: > Jiri Kosina wrote: >> On Wed, 31 Dec 2014, Arend van Spriel wrote: >> >>> The thing with WEXT is that it will stay as is. So if tools like wicd >>> want to support new features like P2P it will need to make the switch. I >>> checked out wicd repo and found a number of iwconfig calls and they kick >>> off wpa_supplicant with wext driver. >> >> Unfortunately this is by no means just about wicd. I have already received >> a few off-list mails from people who were wondering why their home-made >> scripts / tools, which are running 'iwconfig' directly suddenly stopped to >> work, and that it was indeed fallout of WEXT going away. Given the very >> short time this has been in mainline, you can probably imagine the >> fireworks once this appears in major release. > > It is not just the userspace tools (I prefer them, too), which need > wext, but a lot of drivers, too, such as Mediathek drivers e.g. which > perform *much* better compared to rt2x00, especially concerning USB > chips like the one used by Linksys AE3000 (3x3 Mimo) > (https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Linksys_AE3000), which achieves average > throughputs around 14 MB/s *average* with scp of big (> 10 GB) crypted > files even through reinforced-concrete floor(!) - rt2x00 is *far* away > of providing such a performance. > > Next bad point of rt2x00 e.g. is the huge CPU overhead - compare > rt5572sta on Raspi with rt2x00 running netperf and you will see the huge > problem of rt2x00 (which is covered on x86 by mostly oversized multi > core CPUs). > > Another big advantage of rt5572sta is: it is *stable* over a lot of > kernel versions (as long as the kernel didn't break interfaces - but > there are patches to catch them). > > Even ath9k, which usually is a really fine driver, is broken on some > kernel versions (link and throughput is not stable - my use case depends > *heavily* on very high and longterm stable throughput). That's why I'm > using a VM for my ath9k-device to be independent of these quality > problems of mac80211 (or maybe ath9k - don't know) over different kernel > versions. > > > All in all: > If you want to get rid of wext, you still have to go a *very* long way > to get the same *stable* and high throughput quality with *all* chips > depending on mac80211 and not just a few flagship drivers like Atheros.
Hi Andreas,
That's a nice list of unrelated stuff. This has all nothing to do with WEXT. Actually, you can build rt5572sta with cfg80211 support (RT_CFG80211_SUPPORT). This thread is about the configuration API and not about driver performance.
Regards, Arend
> Kind regards, > Andreas Hartmann > -- > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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