Subject: Re: wireless: recap of current issues (configuration)

From: Stuffed Crust <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 12:33:25 -0500

On Mon, Jan 16, 2006 at 03:55:55PM +0100, Johannes Berg wrote:
> I really don't see why a plain STA mode card should be required to carry
> around all the code required for AP operation -- handling associations
> of clients, powersave management wrt. buffering, ... Sure, fragmentation

From the perspective of the hardware driver, there is little AP or 
STA-specific code, especially when IBSS is thrown in.  Thick MACs 
excepted, there's little more than "frame tx/rx, and hardware control 
twiddling".  

The AP/STA smarts happen in the 802.11 stack.  And, speaking from 
experience, it is very hard to separate them cleanly, at least not 
without incurring even more overall complexity and bloat.

It's far simpler to build them intertwined, then add a bunch of #ifdefs 
if you want to disable AP or STA mode individually to save space.

 - Solomon
-- 
Solomon Peachy        				 ICQ: 1318344
Melbourne, FL 					 
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.