There are roughly for kind of devices.
Two months ago, all 802.11g wifi dongles were prism54-based, and covered by the development that happens here. Those were based on the following combo :
Although some of those PCI chips are fullmac-capable, it appears that the firmware loaded into all instances of this combo are softmac firmwares (that additionally include some code to interact with the net2280)
The communication protocol of those devices includes many idiosyncrasies meant to take care of the net2280.
Those are the devices the current driver focuses on.
Those devices got rid of the net2280 with a new generation of chips directly integrating the usb communication part (ISL3887, as the XH8196 driver seems to indicate).
They have a different firmware and the communication protocol is somewhat different (the core communication protocol is the same, though). Basically, the protocol is simpler, less verbose.
Basic support for them is lagging behind only by a little bit, due to my not having one. If you can spare one, please send it over ! If you can test and improve the support yourself, that's even better :)
You're in luck here, because ralink seems to cooperate, and an USB driver is in the works. See their website.
It seems they are coming (see netgear's website ; you bet i'll get one !) I only know the wg111t and wg111u.
Please plugin your device, do a lsusb -vvv
, check the device numbers and/or
the endpoint configuration.
Their endpoint configuration will give you something like this with =lsusb -vvv= :
bNumEndpoints 11 bEndpointAddress 0x01 EP 1 OUT bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bEndpointAddress 0x02 EP 2 OUT bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bEndpointAddress 0x83 EP 3 IN bEndpointAddress 0x84 EP 4 IN bEndpointAddress 0x8d EP 13 IN bEndpointAddress 0x0d EP 13 OUT bEndpointAddress 0x8e EP 14 IN bEndpointAddress 0x0e EP 14 OUT bEndpointAddress 0x8f EP 15 IN
There are many others ; refer to their endpoint configuration :
Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type none wMaxPacketSize 512 bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x01 EP 1 OUT bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type none wMaxPacketSize 512 bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type none wMaxPacketSize 512 bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x02 EP 2 OUT bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type none wMaxPacketSize 512 bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x83 EP 3 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type none wMaxPacketSize 64 bInterval 1
Endpoint configuration unknown.