Dan Williams wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 17:52 +0300, Paulius Zaleckas wrote:
>> Dan Williams wrote:
>>> On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 15:03 +0300, Paulius Zaleckas wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Currently WiMAX op_nap_scan supports scanning for NAP only
>>>> by NAP channel info. Fujitsu devices also supports scanning
>>>> by Mobile WiMAX RF profiles and also can scan whole supported
>>>> frequency ranges. Actually later version of Fujitsu chip does
>>>> not support scanning by a single frequency!
>>> Since the stack was developed against a single implementation (nobody
>>> else was developing Linux drivers or stuff at the time) the current
>>> stack reflects the best guesses of the Intel guys about what other
>>> hardware can do.  So it's not surprising that stuff would need to be
>>> extended later.  Scanning was specifically part of the API that was
>>> *under* specified because nobody was quite sure what other chips could
>>> do.
>>>
>>>> It is not a problem for me to add something like op_nap_scan_all
>>>> and op_nap_scan_rf_profiles. However there are some open questions:
>>> I was pretty sure the Intel parts could do a "wide" scan, scanning all
>>> frequencies they supported too.  Or something like that.
>>>
>>>> 1. IMO it would be better/cleaner to not define functions just
>>>>    returning -EOPNOTSUPP in driver. WiMAX core could just check if
>>>>    function is not defined and return -EOPNOTSUPP ?
>>>>    This should also make it easier to add more functions later,
>>>>    since you won't have to update all drivers.
>>>>
>>>> 2. Connection manager needs to know which scanning methods are
>>>>    supported (instead of calling each and checking if it returns
>>>>    -EOPNOTSUPP). Should we extend capability flags?
>>> Yes.  Connection managers need some way of figuring out what
>>> capabilities hardware supports so they can make intelligent decisions
>>> about what to do.  Lets be careful about adding too many scan methods
>>> though...
>>>
>>> For example, if you can scan an RF profile, how is the connection
>>> manager supposed to figure out *which* RF profiles the card supports, so
>>> that it can tell the card to scan a particular RF profile based on what
>>> country the user is in, for example?  In the end that's basically
>>> frequency ranges anyway.
>>>
>>> So maybe just allowing scans based on frequency ranges would be easier?
>>> The connection manager is easier to update, and more frequently updated,
>>> and thus it might make sense to put the logic of RF profiles in the
>>> connection manager (or the wimax network service) and have it translate
>>> profile -> frequency range, instead of encoding the logic about RF
>>> profiles in the user <-> kernel ABI.
>> In Fujitsu case, the older chipset was capable to scan specific
>> frequencies, but new one can do only "wide" scan or scan by RF profiles.
>> So it looks like we will have to do scan by profiles.
> 
> BTW, maybe I missed it, but are the Fujitsu drivers open-source, or
> might they become open-source at some point?

Currently there is no open source driver, but hey that is what I am
currently working on!

> Dan
> 
>>> Not sure, thoughts?  Experience has shown that stuff like RF profiles
>>> and frequency ranges tend to grow over time, become re-specified and
>>> changed pretty frequently, and get quite complicated 3 years down the
>>> road.  Even with licensed spectrum.
>>>
>>>> 3. I guess we will need to implement netlink interface for
>>>>    connection manager to get supported frequencies, FFT sizes,
>>>>    bandwidths, RF profiles and etc. Do you agree?
>>> Yes.  If the connection manager can't figure out the capabilities of the
>>> device, it can't make intelligent decisions about the device, and it
>>> can't make things easier for the user.  I for one really want to be able
>>> to get supported frequencies out of the device.  If I'm a connection
>>> manager, and I know the user is in Europe, I don't want to even try
>>> scanning on 2.6 GHz.  But unless the card exposes what frequencies it
>>> supports, I either have to (a) hardcode VID/PID/driver <-> frequency
>>> ranges, or (b) risk regulatory problems/take a long time to scan.
>>>
>>> Dan
> 
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