[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On Sunday 29 May 2005 19:19, Julian Hall wrote:
Hi All, I had a thought this morning I would like to run by you guys and gals for feasibility: Ndiswrapper works as we know by taking the existing Windows driver and converting the information it provides from the Wifi hardware into a format that Linux can use. Simply put (and I know it is anything *but* a simple proposition!) *in theory* is there anything *technically* to stop a developer using the Windows XP driver for the new Pinnacle cards in an "ndiswrapper-like" environment?
In a word yes. NDIS is a well defined sub system of windows designed to make network device drivers for window simpler to write (by exposing a limited API). When people write a network device driver for windows they write a NDIS driver NOT a windows driver there is a HUGE different in implementation. A NDIS windows driver plugs in to the NDIS subsystem not directly in to the NT kernel. As the NDIS subsystem is as a defined and limited API it is possible to emulate NDIS calls which is what ndiswrapper does. To emulate other drivers would be near impossible as you would have to emulate the whole of NT's kernel. If other drivers have similar sub driver assemblies like NDIS does then you could emulate a sub driver in the same way but a generic windows driver, NO. -- Robin Cornelius --------------------------------------------------- robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.cornelius.demon.co.uk http://sourceforge.net/projects/rt2400 GPG Key ID: 0x729A79A23B7EE764 http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x729A79A23B7EE764
Attachment:
pgpLzJ4ddlp7o.pgp
Description: PGP signature