Broadcom hybrid_wl driver

[Chris Nolan]

Jarod Wilson wrote:
>
> Heh, sorry 'bout that... Although to be honest, I dunno that I'd suggest
> a kmod as a first package for *anyone*, since they consist of so much
> black magic... :)
>
> However, I'd be perfectly happy if you wanted to take this on as its
> primary maintainer, with me as a co-maintainer.
>
>   
Fair point about a kmod not being an ideal place to start! I've tried to 
read a fair bit about kmodtool and packaging kmods but clearly my 
understanding is still rather limited. However I felt it was important 
to start with a package that I actually use on a day-to-day basis so 
that I'm in a good position to follow the development and 
find/apply/create new patches.

I'd be delighted to have you as a co-maintainer - it would be great to 
have someone to learn from and help answer any questions or problems I 
come across!
>   
>> One thing missing from the package seems to be the patch to fix the 
>> vlanmode issue.
>>     
>
> Wasn't aware there was such a patch, by all means, feel free to wedge it
> into the srpm.
>   
I'll do that, and once I've taken a look through the spec file and done 
some testing I'll submit it for review.
> Okay, so back to the Linux side and the hybrid_wl driver... I get no
> better than ~350KB/s. I presume the driver isn't handling the
> single-antenna very well or something, but a buddy of mine who also got
> a Dell w/the same card said hybrid_wl performed pretty badly for him too
> (the Dell has two antenna internally), but was having stability issues
> with ndiswrapper. I've used ndiswrapper w/the BCM432<something> chip in
> my AppleTV with excellent results though, so I'm off to try that next...
>
>   
Hmmm... I have read very varied reports on this driver - some say it is 
fast and others report poor performance - I am guessing that it could be 
dependent on the specific chipset but I'm not sure. I'll try to collect 
some info and see whether there are any patches in the wild that improve 
performance. I am not in a position to really test the speeds since I 
only use my wireless for broadband so the speed isn't really an issue. 
For me the best thing about this driver is that it works flawlessly with 
NetworkManager whereas the ndiswrapper/windows driver combo was badly 
broken when used with WPA/WPA2 encryption and NetworkManager even though 
it was fine when using wpa_supplicant scripts alone to connect (FWIW 
I've got a 4328 chipset on x86_64).

Best
Chris