Talk:Comparison of open-source wireless drivers

OS

 * mabe we could have one table per os
 * Linux
 * OpenBSD
 * FreeBSd
 * NetBSD
 * Darwin
 * open-solaris??? (openSolaris is discontinued, openIndiana is the successor: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=opensolaris /// http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=openIndiana)


 * mabe we could make an os comparison and add the os inside the projects but bsd like OS behave diferently

does any one has an idea on how to handle multiple OS


 * Maybe we could have different sections for each chipset and list the available drivers for each of them? dystopianray 02:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * so we have 2 choices
 * or we see the os suport from a chipset
 * or we see what chipset suport an os
 * personaly i like trying os but most of the people does not and have only one OS
 * so mabe the most interesting thing is to show them wich chip is suported in their os
 * so mabe we will add some non free drivers but that must be discussed before...what do you think about adding MacOSX drivers?
 * Personaly i don't know(about the non free drivers)

00 tux(my point of views(for npov), howto customise a signature) | talk 07:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

RE-moove
we need to change open-source in free software because some licence such as apsl 1.0 aren't aceptable licences and are open-source and not free software for this reasons or mabe we could add non free drivers to the comparison and change the name(if it exist)

OpenHAL 4 linux
why is the openHAL website dead? is openHAL dead and unmaintained?


 * There's more information about OpenHAL at http://madwifi.org/wiki/OpenHAL. Ceros 18:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for expanding opensource info...
However, these charts tend to be very biased to or against certain platforms, and are prone to be out of date as soon as people will agree upon terms and a layout long enough for it to stick. Just seems like a waste of time doing these big comparisons rather that keeping individual os pages containing this info up to date. I really do think the time and effort would be much more useful keeping up a master list of open source projects and then working to keep them up to date. One size does not fit all. Any author that knows a lot about one project isn't going to know a lot about the others and it just invites flames from people that disagree and generates tons of wasted posts on other related newsgroups which takes away from the image of Wikipedia in my opinion. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by M Scheliga (talk • contribs).
 * I sort of agree with this. Comparison of operating systems is one thing, but this profusion of "Comparison of open source X" seems to be going a bit far, especially ones that are a bit ugly, poorly structured, easily go out of date, and are of minority interest. NicM 09:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC).

firmwares and expert
http://kerneltrap.org/node/4118 why revert back:
 * false information such as atheros card that doesn't have a firmware
 * bad presentation...you must give 2 informations at once:
 * technical information about the firmware
 * the freeness of the firmware

the technical information can be divided in parts:
 * on-board firmware
 * loadable firmware
 * no firmware at all

the freeness include:
 * the distribution of the firmware if it is loadable
 * if there is free firmware such as freemac

example: remplace yes by: keep the (1) for the free firmware
 * no firmware
 * redistribuable loadable firmware
 * non-redistribuable loadable firmware
 * loadable firmware avaliable with a contract
 * on-board firmware

if you want change Yes by and No by


 * From the point of view of this page, I'm not sure why the difference between "no firmware" and "on-board firmware" is interesting; in both cases, "N/A" would seem to suffice, unless there's an issue of firmware updates from the vendor (i.e., you don't need to load the firmware at boot time, but you might need to load it on an update). Guy Harris 07:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleted Text
I have deleted the following text (added by User:00 tux). as it is inappropriate for an article page. PLEASE REVERT CHANGES BEFORE THE MOOVE TO FREE FIRMWARE AND PLEASE USE TAKL PAGE(TO THE USER) REASON:FALSE INFORMATION AND PRESENTATION EXAMPLE OF FALSE IFORMATION:ATHEROS DOESN'T USE A  FIRMWARE AT ALL!!! LVC 22:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD
Most BSDs have the very same drivers for the very same devices written by the very same people. These include ral, ural, ipw, iwi, wpi developed by Damien from OpenBSD; an, wi by Bill Paul from FreeBSD; atw, rtw by David Young from NetBSD. Obviously, these must be grouped together, and not duplicated three times on the very same page... MureninC 20:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Then make a "BSD" section to replace the sections for all four (yes, four - don't forget DragonFly BSD) free-software BSDs. You could add back the "Operating System" column, but you might not want to lose the "Integration" information (which should perhaps indicate, for integrated drivers, which release first had them - so that column might have more than one item, one for each BSD in which it appears.


 * Note also that there should be driver capabilities sections for the other OSes, similar to the "Linux driver capabilities" section, and that some particular driver might have capabilities in one OS that it doesn't have in others (e.g., the FreeBSD Aironet driver isn't integrated with the 802.11 framework as are the NetBSD and, I think, OpenBSD drivers, but it supports monitor mode, unlike the NetBSD and OpenBSD Aironet drivers). Guy Harris 07:24, 18 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree strongly with the idea of having a unique BSD column, for the same driver, the status can be different for each BSD, as of 18/03/2007 for instance the 'ral' driver does not support the same chipsets on FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. See the details ! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.129.227.99 (talk • contribs).

Marvell Libertas 88W8388
Seems like there's a new driver coming along for Linux. Marvell has joined the One Laptop Per Child project and Red Hat people seems to be working like crazy on the driver code Marvell released along with specs under NDA to Red Hat only.

Press release: http://www.marvell.com/press/pressNewsDisplay.do?releaseID=479 Press release: http://www.marvell.com/press/pressNewsDisplay.do?releaseID=557 Mailinglist: http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/libertas-dev/ Git tree: http://git.infradead.org/?p=users/marcelo/libertas;a=summary

Ralink
there is 2 kind of drivers for the ralink cards on linux the rt2x00 that is a new and experimental driver rt 2400,rt2500,rt61 and rt73 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.27.13.176 (talk) 00:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

Ralink cards
the name of the ralink card can be confusing,specialy when you find rt2600 with your lspci and you've got a driver named rt61
 * rt2400pci
 * rt2500pci
 * rt2500usb=rt2570


 * rt2600=rt61
 * rt2561
 * rt2561s
 * rt2661
 * rt73
 * rt2573
 * rt2671

Deviscape vs others
There are several stacks in linux we could add the stack used by the drivers

i have 2 examples:
 * rt2500 use a stack that is in the kernel
 * the rt2x00 use the deviscape stack


 * madwifi use a stack that is in the kernel
 * dadwifi use the deviscape stack —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.27.13.176 (talk) 20:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

Could we add the stack of the driver?GNUtoo(my point of views(for npov), howto customise a signature) | talk 14:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, somebody could do so. Anybody who wants to could add it as a column, using Template:dunno, and then people who know which stack a particular driver uses could fill the column in. Guy Harris 18:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment moved from main article
''[Please leave this comment on the talk page. It is not appropriate for the main article]'' Please cite sources for the others answer than no in for the firmware. See also the firmware section of the talk page for the migration from yes, no, N/A to a more informative version, example are in the talk page, atheros driver has been migrated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Diego (talk • contribs) 16:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

iwlwifi 802.11b network
Not strictly about the artice, but the table list this as working, however I can't connect to my 802.11b only AP resulting in the access point resetting itself. There is also an open bug report noting people can't connect to theirs 802.11b AP's. Has anyone here had any luck getting it to connect to an 802.11b only AP? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.136.35.53 (talk) 12:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

NetBSD outdated
NetBSD 5.0 was released just before OpenBSD 4.5 and FreeBSD 7.2. There are new driver: iwn(4) and zyd(4), but rum(4) that appeared in 4.0(?) is still missing here, too. I try to keep FreeBSD and OpenBSD current, but just do not follow NetBSD enough to fill in all entries. I wonder if I should copy the entries from OpenBSD or FreeBSD, as that is where the driers are ported from -- but if no one checks if the information really apply for NetBSD, it is not worse having entries with many question marks. The Linux entries are not always correct, either, since the documentation is not as good as for the BSD, but at least there is hope for people reading it and fixing mistakes. There are a few options for NetBSD, if no one editing this article is really interested in it: 1. Leave it as it is, since there is not claim of completeness. 2. Mark it as outdated. 3. Copy lines of missing drivers with properties from OpenBSD and mark properties with question marks. 4. Put in lines with just the names to indicate that there are drivers missing, but no one cared to research their properties in detail. 85.177.244.33 (talk) 17:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move
Comparison of open source wireless drivers → Comparison of open-source wireless drivers — like Open-source software — Neustradamus ( ✉  ) 18:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion moved to Talk:List of free and open source software packages. Jafeluv (talk) 16:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


 * That discussion was closed no concensus after 34 days Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Make tables sortable
I would do it myself if only I could... 85.77.178.237 (talk) 07:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

No Legend
There is no legend explaining what the colors mean. What do the colors mean by the way? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pelliott11 (talk • contribs) 08:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

VAP support
would be nice to have information if a particular driver has VAP support which is necessary to have more than SSID per radio — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.1.54.62 (talk) 15:05, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

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Content meant for talk moved from main article
Originally from "Driver capabilities" section:

Also see wireless.kernel.org

Please note: This sections needs to be split in softMAC and hardMAC drivers. All softMAC drivers should have the same capabilities regarding encryption, since it is done by hostapd. Then we should copy/extend http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers because it lists all the available modes of operation: http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Documentation/modes Then we should think about documenting, whether a driver can support multiple modes simultaneously and which ones.


 * AP mode
 * Monitor mode
 * IEEE 802.11s --Arzg (talk) 04:18, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

How to find out what driver I am using?
can we add some text to tell how to find out what driver a user is using? Jackzhp (talk) 17:00, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Move links wireless.kernel.org → wireless.wiki.kernel.org
It looks like content of website wireless.kernel.org were moved to new domain wireless.wiki.kernel.org. Current links points to 404 pages. I'm going to replace all links http://wireless.kernel.org to https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org. --Alexey Vazhnov (talk) 14:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. Probably some other changes should be done, like here. Does anybody want to do it? --Alexey Vazhnov (talk) 14:35, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Add newer AKM support (WPA3 Personal, DPP)
WPA3 Personal (SAE) isn't listed in the tables as a column, but ought to be since there might be hardware dependencies on its support? Also ought to list DPP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smithkennedy (talk • contribs) 18:15, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Dead link
I'm not familiar with this yet and have just the smallest issue.

The link at References 16 gets a html 404 error.

https://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php?fid=2 KDAM71 (talk) 18:45, 28 September 2023 (UTC)