On 16/05/14 15:55, Amitai Schlair wrote:
> I've got a laptop that runs NetBSD pretty well, except that the
> onboard WiFi is unsupported. There's a working driver for Linux
> (https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8723au) so the machine is running
> Linux for the time being. I'd like to develop a driver for NetBSD.

Be forewarned, wireless devices are quite complex to handle.  That repo 
contains >100k lines of code.  While all of it may not be relevant, if 
we assume 10% of the code is relevant and that you can produce 100 lines 
of bugfree code every day, the driver will take 100 days to complete.

> The possible saving grace of this idea is that _maybe_ I could:
>
> * Write meaningful userland tests for my device
> * Watch them fail
> * Understand (relatively) quickly what I'm currently being stupid about
> * Flail around (relatively) harmlessly while I figure things out
> * Feel a bit less stupid, briefly, with each new passing test
> * Notice (relatively) quickly when I've broken something
> * Thereby write a working driver in bounded time

As far as I'm aware, apart from s/userland//, and hence s/relatively/& 
non-/, that's how everyone does it.

> https://github.com/rumpkernel/wiki/wiki/Howto%3A-Configuring-a-802.11-device-with-rumprun
> gives me hope that this might be possible. My 802.11 device is
> attached to USB, though:

Well, hmm, hmm.

Your best bet for building expertise might be to use "ugenhc", which 
gives your rump kernel access to USB devices (on NetBSD).  The actual 
code for ugenhc has probably bitrotted, so fixing that would be a 
relatively simple first exercise.  There are a bunch of ugenhc examples 
in the NetBSD source tree in src/share/examples/rump.  My suggestion is 
to start with a device that is supported (say, a USB memory stick) and 
work your way up from that.  When you get to the development phase, 
check out the "wirelessconf" directory.

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