[Debian-eeepc-devel] [RFC] wireless.sh: remove special treatment for Atheros

[Alan Jenkins]

Thiemo Nagel wrote:
> Dear Alan,
>
>> I'd like to request removal of the special treatment for Atheros 
>> (v.s. Ralink) wireless.  I don't believe it is necessary, and it 
>> confused me while trying to debug the wireless toggle.
>>
>> "ifconfig up" should not be necessary either.  network-manager works 
>> fine without it on my system.  ifupdown must be able to work without 
>> it, because the interface starts off as "down" when ath5k is loaded 
>> at boot time.  If "ifconfig up" is necessary in some setups, I can 
>> only think that they are broken.
>
> If we remove this, we'll probably break things for some etch users who 
> run eeepc-acpi-scripts from unstable.  Therefore I'd suggest to add 
> logic to detect the kernel version and only remove the special 
> treatment for kernels >= 2.6.30.  Yes, that'll add more cruft, but 
> otherwise we might ruin the experience for people running mixed systems.
Hi, thanks for your reply.  I certainly don't want to cause 
regressions.  Can you elaborate please?

Are you concerned about the module loading as well, or only "ifconfig 
up" as quoted above?

I would have thought the module loading was more significant.  If 
"ifconfig up" is the only problem, I can't see how hotplug is different 
from boot.  I assume boot always works, without having to toggle the 
wireless.

Why do we assume 2.6.30 is ok?  Is there an important feature/bugfix in 
it?  Or is this more of a heuristic, in that no-one is able (or 
willing?) to run etch userspace on such a new kernel?

Thanks
Alan