ipw3945 packaging

[Axel Thimm]

On Wed, Apr 26, 2006 at 11:17:04AM +0200, Matthias Saou wrote:
> Jon Escombe wrote :
> 
> > I've been looking at what would be involved in packaging the Intel 3945 wireless
> > driver. The biggest obstacle appears to be the requirement for updated ieee80211
> > files[1]. Are there any plans to merge these updates into the FC5 kernel? And,
> > if so, any plans for a ipw3945 driver package from Fedora?
> > 
> > Note I am talking about the open source driver only - the firmware and
> > regulatory daemon would of course still be out of bounds for Fedora.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Jon.
> > 
> > [1] ATrpms is the only 3rd party repo with a full package at the moment, and
> > they've done it by replacing the shipped ieee80211 kernel modules - something
> > that the 'better behaved' 3rd party repositories won't do...

They only get "replaced" (which they don't, but anyway ...) if you
explicity ask them to. A yum upgrade will not "replace" any kernel
module bit ...

ATrpms just offers an *optional* set of packages that don't get
automatically installed for those people having ipw3945 hardware and
wanting to get it run under FC and RHEL. What exactly is not "well
behaved"? As you noted yourself, if you want to run this hardware you
will *need* to "replace" ieee80211 (which they are not ...). And did I
mention it only happens on a voluntarily basis invoked by the user
sitting in front of his keyboard?

Please be careful with characterizations about "well behaved", it may
turn out that the only thing not "well behavied" is the statement
itself.</rant>

> Apart from either convincing the Fedora kernel packagers to patch
> the current ieee80211 module in the rawhide kernels (not likely, but
> could happen if one of them owns the hardware for instance) or
> waiting for a recent enough version to go into the upstream kernel
> sources, I think you're pretty much stuck. I've packaged the
> firmware and daemon on freshrpms.net too, but decided that "you're
> on your own" for the kernel modules part for now... not sure which
> is worst between my approach and Axel's, though :-)

What use is it w/o the kernel modules? It's like if you had packaged
alsa-libs w/o packaging the kernel modules at RH9 time (or whenever
the RH kernels didn't have alsa bits in them, RH9 is just a guess).

> The proper way to fix this issue is to get the ieee80211 modules updated
> upstream anyway.
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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