Update to net/gnome-netstatus to support new wlan system in -CURRENT

[Coleman Kane]

On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 10:46 -0700, Sam Leffler wrote:
> Coleman Kane wrote:
> > On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 10:35 -0700, Sam Leffler wrote:
> >   
> >> Coleman Kane wrote:
> >>     
> >>> On Wed, 2008-04-23 at 13:18 -0400, Coleman Kane wrote:
> >>>   
> >>>       
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> I put together some changes to the net/gnome-netstatus applet to allow
> >>>> it to detect and work with the new wlan interface system that was just
> >>>> introduced in CURRENT.
> >>>>
> >>>> This new code doesn't identify non-wlanN interfaces as wifi anymore.
> >>>>
> >>>> I think it may need some help in getting signal-strength detection
> >>>> properly using the if_ndis driver. Mine keeps telling me that the signal
> >>>> strength is always 100% no matter where I walk in my apt.
> >>>>
> >>>>     
> >>>>         
> >>> Yes, I do mean to actually attach the patch too.
> >>>
> >>>   
> >>>       
> >> As I told you previously keying off the ifnet name is a mistake.  What 
> >> you can do is check the media status and for any 802.3 interface look 
> >> for a backpointer in the MIB to a parent device that must be marked as 
> >> an 802.11 device.  Right now this can be defeated if ifnet is renamed 
> >> such that you cannot identify the wlanX unity # to find the MIB entry 
> >> under net.wlan.X.%parent.
> >>
> >> Separately you appear to have added "an", "rum", and "ray".  I'm not 
> >> sure what this code does but again using ifnet names is a mistake.  In 
> >> 7.x you can do a similar search of the net.wlan.X MIB space using the 
> >> %parent backpointer to identify an 802.11 device.  wlandebug.c has crude 
> >> code you can crib (for 7.x).
> >>
> >> I don't recall if 6.x has the backpointer in the MIB namespace to use.
> >>
> >>     Sam
> >>
> >>     
> >
> > The original code was written this way, so I was just mimicking it. Your
> > idea sounds a lot more stable. The addition of the "rum" and "ray"
> > interfaces is done by the original patch, as the upstream GNOME code
> > hadn't been written to expect either of those yet. The "an" device isn't
> > added, it's part of the surrounding text of the patch. You're looking at
> > a patch-of-a-patch...
> >
> > Anyhow, I'm not the original author but these changes probably make it
> > better now than it was before (and my netstatus applet works now). I'll
> > see if I can find some time to re-implement this properly over the
> > weekend. We might be able to get more iface info in there as well.
> >
> >   
> Ok, thanks.  FWIW there is a large body of 802.11-related code that 
> should be lifted form various parts of the src tree into a lib80211 or 
> similar.  For example there is now an XML database of regulatory domain 
> information that ifconfig uses.  UI apps could easily want to use this 
> info along w/ many other bits that are mostly used by ifconfig at the 
> moment.
> 
> I am happy to work w/ anyone that's interested in this.
> 
>     Sam
> 

Sam,

Maybe this would be a better application of my time...

I'll start looking into it this weekend...dump some info onto
wiki.freebsd.org....etc...

Then port gnome-netstatus to that in some manner (while preserving prior
compatibility).

I still recommend applying my changes to the port in the meantime, as it
will ensure that current users aren't twiddling their thumbs on a
now-broken applet.

-- 
Coleman Kane
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 195 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-gnome/attachments/20080423/b6a39ca1/attachment.pgp