2010/9/6 Björn Smedman <bjorn.smedman@xxxxxxxxxxx>: > 2010/9/6 Gábor Stefanik <netrolller.3d@xxxxxxxxx>: >> On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Bob Copeland <me@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 4:43 PM, jpo <pommnitz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> >>>> Android 2.2 comes with AP functionality. Are the Android WLAN drivers mac80211 >>>> based? >>> >>> No, they aren't. Does Android really do AP mode or >>> just adhoc? >>> >>> wl1251 is an in-tree module for the TI chip used in G1, >>> but it doesn't support AP mode. I do not know if there's >>> a mac80211 driver that supports the broadcom chip used >>> in other phones. >> >> AFAIK BCM4325 should be doable, especially if it is attached via SDIO >> bus. In phones where SPI is used, it is more problematic, as b43 >> doesn't support SPI. >> > > I guess the short answer is no then; all the chip vendors still focus > on their own proprietary mac implementations, at least on the AP side. > Any thoughts on what would be required for them to switch to mac80211? > Will it ever happen? > > /Björn > AFAIK, the status is the following: -Atheros: Ath9k is officially supported and recommended by Atheros, and is usable for an AP - indeed, I believe Atheros is the first and only company to officially support a mac80211 driver AND make chipsets for APs. AFAIK, for the AR9002 family, no other Linux driver is available (at least not wit 802.11n support). Once we begin seeing AR9002-based APs with Linux firmware, chances are they will have a mac80211 driver inside. CCing Luis on this one. -Broadcom: they refuse to even acknowledge (maybe with the exception of legal threats) the development of b43, and supply binary drivers (and a 2.4-series kernel) in their platform kits. Also, b43 is way behind time when it comes to HW support (it doesn't support N-PHY, which is the norm now), and usually when APs begin shipping wiht a new Broadcom chipset, b43 still doesn't support that chipset until much later. I don't know about APs that include a Broadcom CPU but an Atheros wireless chip - AFAIK some do exist, but all use madwifi or some variant. -Ralink: Again, platform kits contain non-mac80211 drivers, even for recent chipsets (at least they are open-source, though). Someone should find a way to make them base drivers for the eventual RT4xxx (?) chipsets on the rt2x00 framework. -Marvell: No idea. -Realtek: Same situation as Ralink. And some embedded Linux vendors: -MontaVista: I believe they are still using 2.4.x kernels (though I've heard of MontaVista-based routers with 2.6.8 - but even that one is way too old for mac80211.) -MikroTik: AFAIK RouterOS contains binary drivers with no relation to their open-source counterparts. They even named their Atheros driver "ath5k" IIRC, ignoring the in-tree driver with the same name! Plus, even if it had mac80211-based drivers, it wouldn't matter, since there is no (legal) way to access a Unix shell in RouterOS; instead it uses a proprietary "configuration shell" apparently inspired by Cisco IOS and ZyNOS. -- Vista: [V]iruses, [I]ntruders, [S]pyware, [T]rojans and [A]dware. :-) -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
