Re: Linux driver for Realtek RTL8723AU devices with USB ID 0bda:1724such as found in Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13

From: Larry Finger
Date: Wed May 08 2013 - 12:06:55 EST


On 05/07/2013 09:32 PM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

So I can verify that this driver works against 3.8.11 (not against
current -linus because of a build failure), and yes, there is Bluetooth
in this device. In fact, it seems to work better than some in-tree
drivers I have seen in the past.

However, I'm confused as to the above and what it implies for the
purpose of the staging tree. Wasn't the whole point of the staging tree
to have a working-but-ugly driver upstream and have the work to clean it
up happen in the mainline tree instead of off somewhere.

Yes, but even staging has some standards. For example, they frown on inclusion of firmware in a massive data block in a file in the driver - it should be in a separate file the /lib/firmware/ tree. In addition, the mainline drivers/net/wireless/ tree is only available to devices that use mac80211 for the software-based MAC layer. That conversion is a serious effort that may never be done, thus the 8723au driver may never leave staging.

What are the details of the build failure on the mainline tree? It builds fine here. One possibility is that your source tree has a leftover copy of include/linux/version.h that contains a stale coded value of the kernel version. I just pushed a Makefile fix that causes the compiler to look in the new location for version.h first. If that doesn't work, please post the error.

Larry


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