Difference between revisions of "Madwifi"

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(OpenSource HAL)
(Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi)
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== Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi ==
 
== Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi ==
 
Linux driver for 802.11a/b/g universal NIC cards - Cardbus, PCI, or miniPCI - using Atheros chip sets.
 
Linux driver for 802.11a/b/g universal NIC cards - Cardbus, PCI, or miniPCI - using Atheros chip sets.
 +
 +
The following adapters sold by IBM use the Atheros chips:
 +
* [[IBM Dual-Band 11a/b Wi-Fi Wireless Mini PCI Adapter]]
 +
* [[IBM 11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter]]
 +
* [[IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter]]
 +
* [[IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter II]]
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* IBM 802.11a Wireless LAN Cardbus Adapter
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* IBM 11 a/b/g Wireless Cardbus Adapter
  
 
=== Project Homepage ===
 
=== Project Homepage ===

Revision as of 02:25, 27 June 2005

Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi

Linux driver for 802.11a/b/g universal NIC cards - Cardbus, PCI, or miniPCI - using Atheros chip sets.

The following adapters sold by IBM use the Atheros chips:

Project Homepage

http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi

Packages

CVS

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/madwifi \
co madwifi

Status

in development, usable

OpenSource HAL

The "official" driver consists of an opensource wrapper with binary HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). This HAL is not a binary firmware like with the Intel Wireless chips, but a piece of code that needs to runs in the Linux kernel. The vendors reasoning behind this is, that since the Atheros chip could be tuned to any frequency, and hence interfere with systems operating in those frequencies, that we simply need to accept this binary module.
Obviously this binary HAL is unacceptable to the Linux kernel developers, and the Atheros driver in this state will never become part of the official kernel.
Some OpenBSD developers facing the same issue, reverse engineered the binary HAL and have produced an OpenSource version. Hopefully a driver based on this might be included with the Linux kernel at some point in time, and picked up by the mainstream distributions.

Related links