Very interesting, in case you guys don't read arch-general: On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Sujith <m.sujith@gmail.com> wrote:
The new tool to interface with mac80211 based wireless drivers is 'iw' [1]. It was started because WEXT (Wireless Extionsions) will be deprecated [2] and 'iw' will be the single tool to configure/manage wireless devices in linux.
Currently, I see a PKGBUILD in AUR that is outdated and pointing to the wrong source as well. Though it is currently under heavy development [3] and doesn't implement all the commands that iwconfig supports, iw is where future development will be focused on. I think iw should be part of the core wireless tools in arch.
Also, the new regulatory framework for wireless devices is CRDA, initial patches have already been merged into wireless-testing and the only way to choose a regulatory domain from userspace is using 'iw'. Which reminds me, CRDA has to be packaged too. Briefly, CRDA is a userspace database of regulatory domains and is invoked by the kernel as and when needed using udev. Development of CRDA happens on wireless.kernel.org. [4]
Just wanted to update the arch developers with all the new wireless stuff that's happening.
[1] : http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Documentation/iw [2] : http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Documentation/Wireless-Extensions [3] : http://git.sipsolutions.net/?p=iw.git [4] : http://wireless.kernel.org/en/developers/Regulatory/CRDA
Sujith -- http://sujith-m.blogspot.com