In a previous post I mentioned that I have been trying to get WiFi master mode
running. I've been working with two different Ubunutu-based RCN images:
http://rcn-ee.net/deb/rootfs/natty/ubuntu-natty-alpha3-r0-minimal-armel.tar.xz
and also a maverick image from 2 or 3 weeks ago.
rt73-based WiFi dongles are known to support master mode. A few weeks back,
I had a Chumby hacker board working outstandingly well as a WiFi AP using
an rt73 dongle, and that is what Chumby ships in the Chumy One, which fully
supports AP mode.
Whatever driver stack is included in the above natty image refuses to accept
commands to put the device into either master mode or ad-hoc mode. So
clearly the software is different, but I'm not sure if it is simply that the Ubuntu
repos are criminally stale (which is the usual state for Ubuntu) or if the Chumby
folks have included some local patches that haven't made it upstream.
Chumby has sources posted -- but it's devilishly hard to sort out what sources
they are actually shipping -- that's one of the reason's I frisbee'd my Chumby
hacker board. Anyway, as time permits I'll go through the exercise of chasing
down diff's but if anyone has any insight into the problem, I'd love to hear
about it.
After all, Beagle > Chumby. We should get this working.
-dave
Note: The rt73usb driver stack has a known conflict with some elements of the
rt2800 driver stack, where the rt2800 modules claim the rt73 device but can't
handle it. It's a known bug, and until it is fixed the work-around is to blacklist
the pesky 2800 modules.