b38b3d39ad
New HAL includes some driver changes to register accesses. Adds support for WLAN devices on AR5312 family devices. Adds support 32-bit SPARC ath devices (untested). ath enabled in SPARC64 GENERIC builds. This HAL is tested and known to work for i386 PCI devices, SPARC64 PCI devices, and AR5312 WiSoC devices. MIPS PCI devices appear to be busted (possibly only on Alchemy hardware, unconfirmed), and cardbus support is untested due to lack of test hardware. Please report any new problems with this import to garrett@.
74 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
3.0 KiB
Plaintext
$Id: README,v 1.2 2006/06/05 05:14:38 gdamore Exp $
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Atheros Hardware Access Layer (HAL)
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===================================
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* Copyright (c) 2002-2006 Sam Leffler.
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* Copyright (c) 2002-2006 Atheros Communications, Inc.
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* All rights reserved.
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Read the file COPYRIGHT for the complete copyright.
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This code manages much of the chip-specific operation of the Atheros
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driver. The HAL is provided in a binary-only form in order to
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comply with local regulatory agency rules. In the United States
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the FCC requires that a radio transmitter only be operated at power
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levels and on frequency channels for which it is approved. The FCC
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requires that a software-defined radio cannot be configured by a
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user to operate outside the approved power levels and frequency
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channels. This makes it difficult to open-source code that enforces
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limits on the power levels, frequency channels and other parameters
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of the radio transmitter. See
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http://ftp.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Orders/2001/fcc01264.pdf
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for the specific FCC regulation. Because the module is provided
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in a binary-only form it is marked "Proprietary" on Linux; this
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means when you load it you will see messages that your system is
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now "tainted".
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If you wish to use this driver on a platform for which an ath_hal
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module is not already provided please contact the author. Note that
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this is only necessary for new _architectures_; the HAL is not tied to
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any specific version of your operating system.
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Atheros Hardware
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================
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There are many generations of Atheros 802.11 wireless devices that
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are typically referred to by their programming model:
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5210 supports 11a only
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5211 supports both 11a and 11b
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5212 supports 11a, 11b, and 11g
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These parts have been incorporated in a variety of retail products
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including cardbus cards and mini-pci cards. In addition many laptop
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vendors use Atheros mini-pci cards for their builtin wireless
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support.
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The Atheors PCI vendor id is 0x168c. The file ah_devid.h lists most
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known PCI device id's but is not exhaustive. Some vendors program
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their own vendor and/or device id's to aid in BIOS-locking mini-pci
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cards in laptops.
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Atheros SoC Hardware
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====================
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In addition to the cardbus/pci devices Atheros makes System on Chip
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(SoC) parts that integrate a MIPS cpu core and one or more MAC and
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radio parts. Binary support for these parts is necessarily built
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for the embedded MIPS processor where the code is to be run.
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Caveats
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=======
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The binary hal builds provided here include no floating point and
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are operating system-independent. However due to toolchain
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peculiarities the .o files may be wrongly rejected by development
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tools. If that happens it may be possible to patch the file header
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so that the native toolchain will accept the files. In particular
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this has been observed for various Linux MIPS installations for the
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SoC parts. If you have issues consult the associated .inc file in
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the public directory; it explains exactly how the binary file was
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created (e.g. toolchain and compilation options).
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