NOTE: this page is for archival only, see the note at the end of the page.

Contents

  1. Hacking compat-wireless
  2. Git trees you will need
    1. Linux next
    2. compat.git
      1. compat.git modules
        1. compat
        2. compat_firmware_class
    3. compat-wireless.git
      1. Adding new drivers
  3. Sending patches
  4. TODO
  5. Administrative

Hacking compat-wireless

This section deals with development details of compat-wireless and the other trees it uses. If you want to make your own compat-wireless tarballs, or if you see something busted with compat-wireless or just want to add something new or an enhancement this is the guide for you.

Git trees you will need

compat-wireless backports both the bluetooth and 802.11 subsystems down to older kernels. To be able to synchronize backporting the latest and greatest the linux-next.git tree is used as its main source for kernel updates. General Linux kernel compatibility is addressed through a general kernel compatibility tree, compat.git. compat-wireless then has its own tree for specific wireless compatibility. You will then need to checkout three trees to start hacking on compat-wireless: 

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mcgrof/compat.git
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mcgrof/compat-wireless-2.6.git

Linux next

The linux-next.git tree brings all subsystems being worked on for the next kernel release into one tree. So if the current rc kernel is 2.6.33-rc5, this means linux-next will have what people today are working on for the 2.6.34 kernel release.

compat.git

The compat git tree is a general kernel compatibility layer which can be shared amongst different compatibility projects, or drivers. compat-wireless is just one of the kernel compatibility projects using compat.git. compat.git builds a general compatibility module, compat, and any additional modules to let you get new general kernel updates from future kernels on your old kernels.

compat.git modules

compat.git provides a few modules and headers to help with general kernel compatibility.

compat

Provides all exported symbols implemented in each respective kernel compat-2.6.xy.c files. Upon module load it just initializes the Linux kernel's power management Quality Of Service Interface interface added as of the 2.6.24 kernel. No other things are initialized, the rest of the compat module just acts as a library of exported symbols.

compat_firmware_class

Another module which compat.git provides is a backport of the firmware_class module which got updated recently newer with a new request_firmware_nowait() to allow better asynchronous firmware uploading. This was added as of the 2.6.33 kernel. The firmware_class module has been backported into a new module called compat_firmware_class. A separate module has been defined instead of a direct replacement for firmware_class since your system may have old drivers which use the old request_firmware_nowait() and would bust if they used the new request_firmware_nowait(). The compat_firmware_class module registers its own sysfs subsystem and as such also gets udev events sent through a separate subsystem. Because of this a new udev rules file is required and provided.

compat-wireless.git

Anything that is not general kernel compatibility but instead specific to 802.11 or bluetooth goes into compat-wireless.git. After you've cloned all three trees, compat.git, linux-next.git, compat.git and compat-wireless.git you need to change into the compat-wireless directory and tell compat-wireless where you linux-next and compat.git trees are. You do this with environment variables GIT_TREE and GIT_COMPAT_TREE. You can do for example: 

export GIT_TREE=/home/user/wireless-testing/
export GIT_COMPAT_TREE=/home/users/compat.git/

Then you can update your local sources based on these linux-next.git and compat.git trees: 

scripts/admin-clean.sh   - Cleans the compat-wireless-2.6 tree
scripts/admin-update.sh  - Updates compat-wireless-2.6 with your git tree
scripts/admin-refresh.sh - Does the above two

Adding new drivers

Most new drivers are enabled for compilation. If see a driver you would like enabled try it into the mix, test them and if they work enable them and send the respective patches.

Sending patches

Remember there are three trees. linux-next itself is a conglomeration of kernel git trees itself, so patches for linux-next.git should be sent to each respective subsystem for which the patches are targeted for. So for example for 802.11 you will want to send them to John Linville and cc linux-wireless, for further guidelines on this see the Submitting Patches guidelines for 802.11. As another example, for bluetooth you will want to send them to Marcel Holtmann and cc the linux-bluetooth mailing list. If your patch touches on others areas of the kernel refer to the MAINTAINERS file on the kernel.

For compat.git and compat-wireless.git please send patches against to: 

To: Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@kernel.org>
CC: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, linux-bluetooth@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH] compat-2.6: fix foo

For patches for compat.git please use a subject like the following: 

Subject: [PATCH] compat: fix foo

For compat-wireless.git please use a subject like the following: 

Subject: [PATCH] compat-wireless: fix foo

Patches are preferred sent with a clear commit log entry, if unfamiliar with how to send patches please refer to our git guide.

TODO

  • Dialog (make menuconfig) option for this package

Administrative

The way compat-wireless releases are made, where they are kept are detailed in the compat-wireless admin page.

This is a static dump of the wiki, taken after locking it in January 2015. The new wiki is at https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/.
versions of this page: last, v10, v9, v8, v7, v6, v5, v4, v3, v2, v1