[arch-general] Wireless userspace tools

[Sujith]

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Currently, I see a PKGBUILD in AUR that is outdated and pointing to the wrong source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