Re: Too Evil, Too Furious

Dear Bill Paul,

I asked if you needed help earlier in programming project evil.  I was 
wondering if you have a CVS repository of the code.  Also, if I partake in 
this endeavour I will be able to supply you with the cards as I am doing 
research for my university I can order these as extras and ship them to 
you.  We do a lot of opensource development.  Hell I'll even purchase 
these out of pocket.  I would like to help tell me what you need done and 
we'll figure something out...

--sahil

On Mon, 25 Apr 2005, Bill Paul wrote:

>
> Having reached yet another milestone of sorts in Project Evil develpment,
> it's time once again to concentrate on cleaning up some of the rough spots.
> This means fixing problems with cards/drivers that don't quite work right.
>
> Naturally, all the cards/drivers that people are having issues with are
> ones that I don't have. Now, it doesn't do any good to just tell me that
> your card/driver isn't working right: to fix the problem, whatever it is,
> I need to experiment, and for that I need access to the hardware. No, I
> won't send you patches to test. No, there isn't any debugging information
> you can give me via e-mail that will help. No, I'm not kidding.
>
> The cards that I can't seem to get my hands on are:
>
> - Marvell wireless -- supposedly D-Link used this on a card called the
>  DWL-G510, but only on the first revision. The second board revision
>  uses an Atheros chipset, which is already supported. Unfortunately, aside
>  from this one PCI card, this chipset tends to only show up as a built-in
>  component on motherboards or laptops, which makes it hard for me to just
>  go out and get one.
>
> - Inprocomm wireless -- this chipset has been reported to work on i386,
>  but there's also an amd64 driver, and to date nobody has reported trying
>  it with FreeBSD/amd64.
>
> - AirGo Pre-N wireless -- there's apparently a Belkin cardbus card
>  (F5D8010?) that uses this one
>
> - RayLink RT2500 wireless -- this one shows up on some PCI cards, but
>  I haven't had any luck finding one locally yet
>
> The developers of the Marvell and Inprocomm drivers apparently chose
> to use Microsoft structured exception handling (*sigh*), which is
> interesting in that these devices have drivers for amd64 as well as
> i386. From what I've read, Microsoft's amd64 implementation of SEH
> should not cause any problems for Project Evil on amd64, but I haven't
> personally tested it since the only card I have with an amd64 driver
> is a Broadcom one.
>
> My problems with finding these cards locally are:
>
> - In-store selections around here really suck
> - In many cases, the chips appear on only certain revs of a given
>  card, and either I can't find that rev, or the boxes aren't well
>  enough marked for me to figure out just which rev is inside
> - Some of them show up most often as built-in devices, and I can't
>  go out and buy a new laptop or motherboard just to test one network
>  interface
>
> If you have one of these cards and would like to loan or donate it, we
> at Project Evil Laboratories would be most appreciative. If you don't want
> to part with your hardware, you can still help by giving me remote access
> to a system with the card installed. Note that just giving me a shell
> really doesn't help: in order to experiment, I need to be able to load,
> test and unload kernel modules, which requires superuser access. The
> ideal setup would be to use a serial console, since in some cases it
> may be necessary to poke around with the kernel debugger. Don't consider
> this unless you have a scratch box lying around that you can afford to
> have bounced a few times, because I guarantee you I will crash the thing
> a few times before I get it to work.
>
> Lastly, if you can't do either of these things, you can still help by
> providing some important information. If you have one of these cards,
> tell me where you got it! Tell me what manufacturer and model number
> it is, but also carefully inspect the box it came in and tell me _ANY_
> identifying markings on it that will help me distinguish it from all
> the other cards out there. Very often, card distributors will sell two
> different cards with the same part number. (I own no less than 4 cards
> called the "LinkSys LNE100TX," all of which have different chipsets on
> them.) D-Link and Linksys are some of the worst offenders in this area.
> Even worse, most PCI cards now have metal RF shields on them that
> cover up the chipsets, which makes it impossible to tell what you're
> getting just by looking at the picture on the box.
>
> Look for hardware revision info. Look for firmware revision info. If
> you can provide a URL to the exact card you got from the place you
> ordered it, even better. Whatever you do, don't just tell "I have
> a D-Link model so-and-so." Instead, tell me "I have a D-Link model
> so-and-so that I ordered from the following URL, and the box has
> a sticker that says HW rev: B3 FW rev: 2.0." If I have info like this,
> I can grab a card off a store shelf when I find the right one. Otherwise,
> I can't take the chance on paying for it only to find out later it
> uses a chipset I already have.
>
> If you want to donate/load a card to Project Evil, you can send it
> to the following address:
>
> Attn: Bill Paul
> Wind River Systems
> 500 Wind River Way
> Alameda, CA. 94501
> USA
>
> Bill's office phone number: 1 (510) 749-2329
>
> Remember to include a note with your address so that the card can be
> shipped back to you, and specify how soon you need the card back. All
> loaned cards will be returned.
>
> -Bill
>
> --
> =============================================================================
> -Bill Paul            (510) 749-2329 | Senior Engineer, Master of Unix-Fu
>                 wpaul_at_windriver.com | Wind River Systems
> =============================================================================
>              <adamw> you're just BEGGING to face the moose
> =============================================================================
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