Re: USB for rtw89 driver?

From: James <bjlockie@lockie.ca>
To: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>
Cc: linux-wireless <linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: USB for rtw89 driver?
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2021 22:10:04 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <90a01a09-a280-0dec-2a36-fc70762144ed@lockie.ca> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <5fff6faf-87a0-673e-0fda-853eb0391797@lwfinger.net>

On 2021-11-29 20:44, Larry Finger wrote:
> On 11/29/21 17:37, James wrote:
>> Does anyone know what this is?
>> The releasenotes pdf says it came from Realtek.
>>
>> https://github.com/shiqishao/RTL8852AU_WiFi_linux_v1.15.0.1-0-g487ee886.20210714 
>>
>>
>> What are the roadblocks to getting USB support in the kernel driver?
>>
>> Is it possible to have a USB part of the driver that uses the kernel 
>> part of the driver?
>>
>
> The file structure indicates that it is a variation of the USB driver 
> from the Realtek group. As such, it will have all the flaws of that 
> family of drivers.

That is unfortunate but not surprising.
>
> I have previously estimated that it would take about 6 months of work 
> to get such a driver into shape to be submitted into staging. The 
> approach taken in https://github.com/neojou/rtw89-usb will take a lot 
> less time; however, without the cooperation of Realtek, it will take a 
> lot of USB dumps to compare the communication with the chip to 
> discover what differences there are between the PCI and USB versions, 
> other than the obvious base platform data flow.

>
> Have you tried either the shiqishao or the neojou driver? If you are 
> willing to provide me with a device, I could probably give you some 
> help getting the neojou driver into kernel shape.
>
> Larry
>
I don't have the adapter but I do want a wifi6 one.
I have a mediatek wifi5 one and that is pretty decent.

It is unlikely the neojou driver with work by replacing the PCI with 
corresponding USB calls?
I tried to compile it (to see if it even compiles :-)) but there are 
tons of "unused-*" warnings.

I've been reading about the lwfinger repo for the rtw89 PCI driver.
I'm guessing at one point the code between neojou and lwfinger was similar?
Do I have this right, the rtw89 driver will compile on ubuntu but not work?
What distro do you use for development?
Maybe Realtek will help to add the USB support. :-)

Can you provide me with a link to a local store that has the DLink 
DWA-X1850?
I'm not opposed to buying you one but it wouldn't be until next year. :-)