rt2500 fails to build

[Andy Price]

Binary package hint: rt2500

Since feisty, rt2500 fails to build on all arches with errors:

g++ -c -pipe -w -O2 -D_REENTRANT -DQT_NO_DEBUG -DQT_THREAD_SUPPORT -DQT_SHARED -DQT_TABLET_SUPPORT -I/usr/share/qt3/mkspecs/default -I. -I. -I/usr/include/qt3 -o raconfigui.o raconfigui.cpp
/usr/include/linux/wireless.h:886: error: 'IFNAMSIZ' was not declared in this scope
/usr/include/linux/wireless.h:925: error: 'IFNAMSIZ' was not declared in this scope
/usr/include/linux/wireless.h:1049: error: 'IFNAMSIZ' was not declared in this scope

Looking deeper, it seems that there was a change in the mainline kernel's wireless.h back in September where some includes have been surrounded by an #ifdef __KERNEL__ block in order to "sanitise" the header. This means that IFNAMSIZ and some other things no longer get defined. The changes can be seen at: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=baef186519c69b11cf7e48c26e75feb1e6173baa

Following the comments in linux/wireless.h I tried building rt2500 with some includes changed from linux/wireless.h to iwlib.h (build dep on libiw-dev) which allowed the package to build but after installing the package, rt2500-source failed to build using module-assistant. This could be a whole different bug but that's where I became out of my depth of knowledge and felt filing a bug would be more useful.

I'd be happy to try fixing this bug/s since I have an rt2500 card but I'm not very familiar with this kind of packaging so I may need some mentoring through it

As an aside, this bug may be quite important to fix as a fallback if bug #120297 doesn't get fixed for gutsy.

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

I have already a package ready for gutsy which didn't indeed compile (see bug #113054).
I have changed all instances of linux/wireless.h to iwlib.h and now it compiles without problem.
Differently from the feisty version, this doesn't build its own rt2500 module (even though an rt2500-source package is installed).
I believe this is done on purpose, as the package should rely on the kernel's rt2x00 module (which unfortunately in our case it still not there yet).
I have tried to see if module-assistant builds the rt2500 module but I too was unable (I was using a chroot, so I may try later by logging directly in gutsy).
What is the error message you are getting?

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

I think I've got the bugger.
I've had to modify the rt2500 source code but now module-assistant compiles, the module can be loaded and I'm accessing the internet with gutsy right now.
Will add this to the patch in https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/113054.

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

rt2500 (1:1.1.0-b4-3ubuntu1) gutsy; urgency=low

  * Add .desktop file (LP: #113054)
  * Change Maintainer field
  * Fix failed compilation (LP: #120301) Thanks to Andrew Price
  * Fix rt2500 module compilation

 -- Cesare Tirabassi <email address hidden> Mon, 7 May 2007 14:19:35 +0200

[Andy Price (andy-price)]

Thanks for your work, Cesare. Much appreciated.

[Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto)]

Thanks to you Andy, you are the one that solved this!