[CUWiN-Dev] Re: CUWIN on Meraki Mini

[David Young]

On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 08:02:42PM -0500, Bob Keyes wrote:
> 
> 
> On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, David Young wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Feb 07, 2008 at 02:29:37PM -0800, Bao Q. Nguyen wrote:
> > > Bob,
> > >
> > > So if David can get CUWIN to compile for the Meraki Mini, which is the same
> > > MIPS processor that's on the WGT63U (Atheros 2515?) is running so then
> > > porting CUWIN to the WGT63U should be much simpler.
> >
> > According to
> > <http://wiki.openwrt.org/OpenWrtDocs/Hardware/Netgear/WGT634U>, the
> > WGT634U is based on a Broadcom CPU.  They change the components of these
> > products all of the time, so it is possible that some versions contain
> > an Atheros system on a chip.
> 
> I am pretty sure they're all the same design (I know that's not typical of
> WiFi APs) and use the broadcom CPU. They don't use the built-in bcm USB
> 1.1, but rather an external 2.0 chip. As far as I know, that OpenWRT info
> on the WGT634U is accurate.
> 
> > The Broadcom platform is cool (has an IPSec coprocessor!), but it
> > was not open, last time I checked.  Neither is the Atheros platform.
> > It matters because supporting a closed architecture involves entails a
> > lot of uncertainty and added expense, and you lose certain opportunities.
> > Just for example, without documentation, we may never be able to exploit
> > the Broadcom IPsec accelerator.
> 
> Hrm, perhaps enough information has become public to support it?

AFAIK, the Linux port is open source.  That tends to prove that enough
information is available to support the CPU.

> The WGT634U run Linux out of the box, though the software they built does kind
> of suck (it runs entirely from ram!).

I wonder why that is?  Perhaps Linux cannot use the on-board storage
effectively?

> Have you looked for info on the
> IPSEC functionality? Or is it more of a problem that, if you don't know
> the provenance of the information, it might be better to keep your eyes
> off of it, to avoid legal problems?

I haven't looked for info on the IPSec accelerator.  I don't have enough
personal interest in the WGT634U to go looking for documentation.

These days, I am solely interested in comprehensive documentation on new
WLAN chips, such as Realtek and ADMtek used to provide me.  These days,
it seems that no WLAN maker is willing to play ball.

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung at ojctech.com      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933 ext 24