[ATrpms-devel] Help nedeed - madwifi drivers for AR5007* cards for CentOS 5 prepared

[Axel Thimm]

On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 02:58:31AM +0200, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:
> Axel Thimm wrote:
> > On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 02:06:55AM +0300, Axel Thimm wrote:
> >> On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 12:27:56AM +0200, Ljubomir Ljubojevic wrote:
> >>> I created madwifi package for AR5007* Atheros radios [...]
> > 
> >> Also I think you must have used the madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6 branch. But
> >> AFAIK this branch has been deemed dead by madwifi upstream:
> > 
> > It looks like AR5007* is supported in madwifi's trunk branch:
> > 
> > http://madwifi-project.org/changeset/3989
> > 
> > So please try to use the packages at
> > 
> > http://atrpms.net/dist/el5/madwifi-free/
> > 
> > They may already work for you.
> 
> I am reluctant to go with the trunc version. That is beta version in 
> heavy progress, so who knows what they are changing and how long it will 
> take until stable 0.9.5 is out.

Well, could you at least try and and report if it works? I think that
trunk will get more attention if soemthing breaks than the old
madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6 branch, where active tickets are closed with the
comment that the developers have not time to focus on both trunk and
this branch.

> It would be nice to also have this version available, as this is the
> last version for AR5007 with proprietary (and stable) HAL. If you
> are now willing to host it, I would just keep it in my repository
> for those who decide to use that version or need version for older
> kernel.

I have no problem hosting it, I was just pointing out that it may
already be considered outdated. We can host it under bleeding.

> My intention was not to just add diff to existing madwifi drivers but to 
> create package properly marked for AR5007* owners guaranteeing them 
> stability.

OK, I would just call the packages something like 0.9.4 with ar2425
added to the release field. The 0.10.5.6 isn't the actual version of
the sources, but the subversion of the hal component.

> Also, there is an problem with active ath5k driver already in current 
> kernel. ath5k driver tries to load on AR5007* and fails, but in the 
> process it prevents ath_pci driver to load the card. That is why 
> ath5k_blacklist-modprobe.d script is needed. Without it madwifi from rpm 
> will not work. I am not sure if madwifi-modprobe.d is necessary, but it 
> can not hurt to have it.
> 
> Can you please check and tell me how I am to add those 2 files to binary 
> rpm? I will need this for few more rpm's I want to build, and I am most 
> definitely going to need it if I even need to produce newer version of 
> the trunk.

In general, if you want to add files to an rpm (or better said the
build process already adds some new files and you need to tell the
specfile), you just add them to the %files section, e.g.

%files
/some/other/files/here
...
...
/new/file/path
/new/file/path2

You should try to replace some path elements like /usr/bin,
/usr/share/data etc. with macros like %{_bindir}, %{_datadir},
although for the first tests it doesn't make a difference, we can fix
these later.

> I would also appreciate if you could tell me if there is the way to 
> compile modules for different kernels without the need to reboot with 
> another kernel and then compile so I can produce also rpm's for last 5.2 
>   kernels.

You mean with kmdls? It's just

rpmbuild --define "kmdl_kernelsrcdir /path/to/kernel/source" ...

> Until 5.3 came out I used kernel 2.6.18-92.1.13 not wanting to
> disturb working unit. I also noticed problem with 2.6.18-128.x
> kernels and AMD RS780 motherboards forcing me to stay with
> 2.6.18-92.1.22 on 2 such PC's. It is nice to have fall back version
> and without wireless drivers on notebook can be very inconvenient. I
> spent 1 month a year ago plugged to LAN cable until I found/waited
> for driver that works.
> 
> I hope I am not being difficult, and I hope you will help me in my quest 
> for knowledge.

No problem. If you want to dive more into rpm mechanics, there is

http://www.rpm.org/wiki/Docs#PackagerDocumentation

-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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