What is the d80211 subsystem?
A. The d80211 subsystem represents the next evolution of the wireless stack on Linux. While the older ieee80211 subsystem was adequate for solutions where a majority of the wireless network processing occurred on the network adapter, newer cards required the stack to perform more and more functionality. The older stack, however, was not modular enough to effectively handle this transition. The d80211 subsystem provides a modular design which allows specific functionality to be moved to user space (for example access point selection for association). You may frequently hear d80211 referred to as a ‘softmac’ stack. This essentially means software is performing a lot of the network processing. Some benefits for users to switch to the new stack include: • Moving policy and complexity out of the kernel into user space for scanning, association state machine, roaming, etc. • Providing advanced wireless network capabilities for all wireless hardware as any feature is added over time without h
