Hi!

quoted

Having a parameter to control this seems a bit too complex to me.

How is 

insmod ipw2100 enable=1

different from

insmod ipw2100
iwconfig eth1 start_scanning_or_whatever

?

It defaults to enabled, so you just need to do:

    insmod ipw2100

and it will auto associate with an open network.  For the use case where
users want the device to load but not initialize, they can use

    insmod ipw2100 disable=1

If hotplug and firmware loading worked early in the init sequence, no
one would have issue with the current model; it works as users expect it
to work.  It magically finds and associates to networks, and your
network scripts can then kick off DHCP, all with little to no special
crafting or utility interfacing. 

Actually it would still transmit when user did not want it to. I
believe that staying "quiet" is right thing, long-term. And it could
solve firmware-loading problems, short-term...

How long does association with AP take? Anyway it should be easy to
tell driver to associate ASAP, just after the insmod...
								Pavel