wireless networking thoughts

The AmigaOne X1000 looks neat, but I'd still prefer a laptop. One thing a laptop would need, is wireless networkign support, and Wireless networking is currently a bit antiquated, from what I can tell only some old Prism cards can be used for 802.11b speed and now useless WEP encryption. I suppose this could also be useful to desktop users that don't want to run ethernet cables around their house.

So, I'd like to think up a reasonable bounty or set of bounties, to try and help fill this hole. Some things I think should happen for this:

Have as much of this support in a shared library so any wireless chip driver can use that for the settings, search for and connect to routers, handling encryption, and whatever else that is common to usage of all devices. Should be easily updatable to support new types as needed, such as when 802.11 N was added to the list, and for whatever succeeds N later, etc. This library would sit between the hardware driver and the main TCP/IP stack such as Roadshow in OS4.x. Open1X developers indicate that all that Open1X is a TCP/IP stack and control over a DHCP client, which Roadshow and even MiamiDX should offer quite nicely. It sounds like wireless does not need to be integrated into the Roadshow stack itself, which likely makes this more possible if Olaf is distracted with other things.

The wireless chip driver should be as minimal as possible, and the API to the above library should be well documented for anyone to write a driver. It should be supportive of any device type (80211.a, b, G, N, etc), supportive of different security types (WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc) and updatable to future types as needed. I'd like to avoid the multiple API situation on Linux between NDISwrapper, MadWifi, etc. as I saw some mention that Open1X needed to be aware of and be compatible with differences between those driver families, the "Linux native" one, etc. It'd be great if AmigaOS could have a single driver standard.

GUI interface to the library to view/configure settings, encryption type (WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc.), subtype (TKIPP, etc)

Perhaps Open1X (aka OpenSEA xsupplicant?) can be used as a starting point fo rport or to get ideas for a new implementation? (someone else suggested this to me somewhere, I forget who to credit them)
http://www.openseaalliance.org/index. ... task=view&id=50&Itemid=38


I don't know much/anything about RADIUS, it seems to be something additional for Enterprise support of some kind. I don't know that I'd include this as a requirement for the driver bounty, but perhaps encourage to keep this in mind when developing the driver and wireless.library APIs so it's easy to add as a separate bounty task. I saw mention of FreeRADIUS on the Open1X site.

Are there any other additional things that we'd want/like to have?

Any other comments, suggestions, questions to ask, etc?

@billt

Its a very good idea. I like it!!!

@billt

Sounds like a good plan to me and just what OS4 needs.

Another thought, does anyone know anything about cellular phone modems, either laptop card style or tethering to an external phone via USB cable? I'd like any wireless support we get for AmigaOS to be as extendable as possible, even if there's no immediate use for it, and would like any developer to keep all wireless things in mind for library/API development even if those particular features/drivers/addon libraries are left for the future and/or other developers to make happen...

So, I guess the more technical question is, does anyone know how cellular networking drivers/encryptions/APIs may differ from WIFI/80211.*? What else may be needed for SIM card access to get whatever is needed from them for cellular networking, and what about others in America such as Sprint and Verizon which do not use SIM cards?

What about WiMax?

What other wireless standards (or non-standards) are there that should be included, or at lest possible to add by those who want it later?

I'd like more than just "hey that's a neat idea" discussion, we need some technical discussion from anyone that knows these things to put together a decent plan for API definitions, implementation plan (which features should go in which libraries, and how should they interact with each other), and how best to split different things up into different bounties...

@billt
Would it be possible to combine efforts with AROS and/or MOS? Seems pointless reinventing the wheel 3 times, especially when a wider audience means more chance of someone taking an interest.

@ChrisH

I wouldn't be against an open-sourced implementation, though I'd prefer something that would allow driver coders to do closed source chip drivers should they choose to or need to (as in chip vendor NDA forbids open-sourcing) Open1X is dual-licensed as GPL and BSD. GPL would of course pretty much require allowing the others to benefit. If BSD is chosen, perhaps not so much. I myself would choose which ever allows more drivers to be added. I don't know enough about things to say if that alone chooses BSD over GPL. I'd prefer LGPL over full GPL or BSD, but cest la vie.

I myself am not interested in either AROS or MOS, but at the same time I myself do not necessarily like the idea of going out of my way to exclude anyone from anything. But then it is the policy of amigabounty.net to bounty for whatever the current AmigaOS release is, potentially even excluding 4.0 in the presence of 4.1. I'm not a fan of excluding any 4.x revision users, but majority rules. I have both 4.1 on my AmigaOne XE and 4.0 on my Classic, I really don't like excluding 4.0...

In our small Amiga-alike communities, we do suffer a bit from under-staffing, so we can all benefit from sharing resources as you say. But at the same time, I feel it's an odd thing if all we do is port everything over from Linux. That makes us little more than a more difficult environment to run Linux software, when just running Linux is easier to do that with. I'd like us to all consider that diversity, and reinventing the wheel makes each unique, and diversity and competition can motivate each to improve itself and find better ways to do the same things. That's why there are different Amiga and -alike OSes to begin with. If we really needed to share resources so much, there'd only be one OS, and I decline to speculate which it would have been.

It's partly up to interested developers to negotiate what license they'd like to work with with the bounty committee, and whether they wish to port something like Open1X or if they'd prefer something else or from scratch.

All I want is a decent wireless support for what I use, extendable enough and well documented driver API and protocol API that each driver doesn't need to reinvent the same wheel from the previous driver in the same OS. If we end up with something sharable across them all, that's great. If all we end up with is something for OS4.1, well, that's good enough for me, since I don't have the others.

P.S. What AROS and/or MOS efforts are there to combine with?

Some questions extracted from rewriting this topc starter at Amigaworld:

This system at some level will need to interface with PCI and USB, are there other forms of wifi wireless "cards" to potentially use? Would this level of interface be better located in the common library, or would it be better in each individual driver?

Does anyone have a good understanding of Radius? How important is it?

What about other 802.11 imporant keywords that I'm for the moment unaware of?

How do 802.11 A/B/G/N, WiMax, cellular, etc. differ from the driver and software perspective?

Does it make sense to try for a general wireless.library, supporting wifi, wimax, cellular, bluetooth, etc? Or should this forget about other things, and envision more of a wifi.library/802.11.library, then semarate wimax.library, cellnetlibrary, etc? each on top of Roadshow, sortof beside each other in that heirarchy? If split, what would still be common between them, such as GUI interfacing type stuff that could be shared, and begin with this bounty?

What chip vendors forbid open-sourcing drivers for their parts, if any?

@ChrisH

What relevant APIs are copatible/similar across the 3 Amiga/alike OSes?

TCP/IP stack? PCI? USB? GUI? File access? etc?

Which APIs are different? How much so? What extent of effort is required to overcome these differences?

Is it reasonable to ask that a wireless framework be capable of making the Amiga into a wireless access point (going to the internet via ehternet wire) for other devices to connect to over wifi? Or is that too much additional stuff to be part of an initial bounty?