From owner-freebsd-drivers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jul 14 15:07:50 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-drivers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 06E4E1065676 for ; Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:07:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nvangoghs@gmail.com) Received: from mail-ey0-f182.google.com (mail-ey0-f182.google.com [209.85.215.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8BF188FC08 for ; Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:07:49 +0000 (UTC) Received: by eabm6 with SMTP id m6so1402161eab.13 for ; Sat, 14 Jul 2012 08:07:43 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=G/wAtOLy3Bmm59iAcyLZBZX75qlncoPnReQxDyZqHjQ=; b=J5LVcxNi0GWSiT81QZFKAP6Qf0Vx7LIhfj5TglkkQlAuJiMvtdhN0/KNj/z6AYEkb0 qbTFxl+tEG6igiD7kHxDAMFMXJwCXdzxX1PF9z/ols2bA18RETx1aCscs87RJP0vLNG1 I3CeorN711XZrzqdGzmJ5ffTJsp0nMATSDF/neVpWVhnSOa5lmZDM7DRpY96jd7OcW3b ThlUfKznwyQaY7U6+NrBeHqBZLxEiSIQsZhJU1db+G/NO+2KrswIO/fEBDiHw8qiVDrR vne2rCPHcq3aR08QmumMIRCFzwEML6vj1+8jcRFm8OsbfmJm+ifiMriXlW2/k3ZpLUDv cSnA== Received: by 10.14.211.132 with SMTP id w4mr2321022eeo.39.1342278462922; Sat, 14 Jul 2012 08:07:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.0.2] (cpc7-dudl11-2-0-cust161.wolv.cable.virginmedia.com. [94.173.248.162]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id g46sm4366885eep.15.2012.07.14.08.07.40 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sat, 14 Jul 2012 08:07:42 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <50018B36.4000207@gmail.com> Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:07:34 +0100 From: nvangogh User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.16) Gecko/20120613 Icedove/3.0.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-drivers@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Precisely what hardware information is required? X-BeenThere: freebsd-drivers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Writing device drivers for FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:07:50 -0000 Hello, I am a novice as far as FreeBSD is concerned. However, I am interested in device driver development methodology and code. My question relates specifically to a particular wireless chipset for wifi. There is currently no device driver available under FreeBSD for the RTL 8191 SE chipset. Realtek have a web page explaining the features of the chip in general terms. There is source code available for certain linux distributions. Now I understand that it would be impossible to build such source code on FreeBSD. However, according to the documentation, the source code is divided into two parts i.e : 1. Firmware for the chip. There is a folder that contains 7 small files (on average 70kb) and they end with .bin.fw - I believe that these are the files containing assembly code for the chipset. How would one go about writing such code from scratch, with only general information about the driver? Would it be necessary to have technical information such as the number of registers in the chipset and eg how they interact? Or Is there a generic codebase of 'firmware' that will work with most wifi chipsets? What does the firmware actually do? 2. Source code. This is written in c. At this stage I have no questions about it. Kind Regards