Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

[Posted September 9, 2010 by corbet]

From:		"Henry Ptasinski" <henryp-dY08KVG/lbpWk0Htik3J/w-AT-public.gmane.org>
To:		devel-tBiZLqfeLfOHmIFyCCdPziST3g8Odh+X-AT-public.gmane.org, linux-wireless-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA-AT-public.gmane.org
Subject:		[ANN] Full-source Broadcom wireless driver for 11n chips
Date:		Thu, 9 Sep 2010 08:10:06 -0700
Message-ID:		<4C88F8CE.5090708@broadcom.com>
Cc:		"Henry Ptasinski" <henryp-dY08KVG/lbpWk0Htik3J/w-AT-public.gmane.org>
Archive-link:		Article

Broadcom would like to announce the initial release of a fully-open
Linux driver for it's latest generation of 11n chipsets.  The driver,
while still a work in progress, is released as full source and uses the
native mac80211 stack.   It supports multiple current chips (BCM4313,
BCM43224, BCM43225) as well as providing a framework for supporting
additional chips in the future, including mac80211-aware embedded chips.
   The README and TODO files included with the sources provide more
details about the current feature set, known issues, and plans for
improving the driver.

The driver is currently available in staging-next git tree, available at:

	git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-next-2.6.git

in the drivers/staging/brcm80211 directory.

---
Henry Ptasinski
henryp-dY08KVG/lbpWk0Htik3J/w@public.gmane.org

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(Log in to post comments)

Posted Sep 9, 2010 15:36 UTC (Thu) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]

I did notice it felt a bit chilly this morning...

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 15:49 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

You must be living in hell :)

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 18:15 UTC (Thu) by traviscj (guest, #69769) [Link]

HAHAHAHA BECAUSE HELL FROZE OVER! LOL

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 17, 2010 10:18 UTC (Fri) by sxpert (subscriber, #19738) [Link]

Hell will freeze over when Nvidia show up with complete docs for their chips ;-)

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 24, 2010 12:52 UTC (Fri) by efexis (guest, #26355) [Link]

So what you're saying is that open source software is the answer to global warming? I knew it!

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 16:09 UTC (Thu) by djcapelis (subscriber, #53964) [Link]

Oh my!

This is an amazing development. One of the last problems with a macbook I was having was a broadcom chip.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 16:39 UTC (Thu) by lkundrak (subscriber, #43452) [Link]

The last one is being a macbook I presume ;)

A bit late

Posted Sep 9, 2010 16:32 UTC (Thu) by cdamian (subscriber, #1271) [Link]

This took so long, that I don't have broadcom wifi devices left.

Maybe in my netbook ...

But it is always nice to watch a company see the light.

A bit late

Posted Sep 9, 2010 23:58 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]

The only light they saw was declining revenue from OEM's dropping them for lack of FOSS drivers. Dell, HP, IBM and most of the OEM now require FOSS drivers to win contracts. Without FOSS drivers Broadcom was being sidelined by Atheros and Intel at the major OEM's.

The only surprising thing is how much business they let walk out the door before complying. Take a look at OEM offerings and I bet you will be hard pressed to find Broadcom chip-sets in new Laptops/Desktops. They've lost nearly their entire market share in their insistence on not open sourcing.

A bit late

Posted Sep 10, 2010 0:13 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

If you think about it, there's a lot of positives to talk about in this if its true.

OEMs making choices about open driver availability and having that impact a component maker's bottomline in a real quantifiable way. That's actually amazing. That's _the_ story to put in front of every device manufacturer from this point forward. Open your drivers...or lose business like Broadcom did. If its true and they lost significant amounts business revenue because of a lack of a an open driver for their chipsets..they are potentially the best spokebusiness we could hope for to make the case to other hardware companies to get with the program. Doubly so if Broadcom's business perks up in response to having open drivers available.

-jef

A bit late

Posted Sep 10, 2010 0:44 UTC (Fri) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link]

It would be amazing if it were true (I don't know).

The problem is that the only major thing where closed drivers rule is ARM graphics and for this argument to work someone has to move to have the first mover advantage so that others can loose.
Thing is in the ARM graphics market there is no first mover. All drivers are closed and will probably stay that way. When nobody sees declining numbers it will be hard to convince ARM SOC manufacturers to demand FOSS drivers. Damn you chicken, damn you egg.
Let's hope the Linaro guys read this and come to the right conclusion. IMO ARM is hands down the most important arch for Linux.

A bit late

Posted Sep 10, 2010 9:02 UTC (Fri) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link]

yeah - but we'll get there too. you'll see ;-)

A bit late

Posted Sep 10, 2010 17:27 UTC (Fri) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

"The problem is that the only major thing where closed drivers rule is ARM graphics and for this argument to work someone has to move to have the first mover advantage so that others can loose."

"Let's hope the Linaro guys read this and come to the right conclusion. IMO ARM is hands down the most important arch for Linux."

The chief player in Linario being ARM and ARM having their own "Mali" GPU, it would make a lot of sense for ARM to get the ball rolling themselves by releasing specifications / helping to develop an open driver for Mali.

A bit late

Posted Sep 10, 2010 1:07 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]

I doubt you will get anyone to commit to it, but I remember a tech interest story about a year ago that HP and IBM were beginning to dump manufacturers that didn't supply FOSS drivers because their corporate clients were demanding Linux compatibility and they had begun testing for it and adding it to specification requirements. Add to that a story only few months ago about Dell beginning to do the same thing and I did a little snooping out of curiosity.

IIRC Broadcom WiFi devices began disappearing from most laptops about 3 months ago (despite an apparent price advantage over Intel and Atheros). The Big OEM's Ink supply contracts infrequently (they don't like to disrupt major parts and carry multiple parts in their supply channel) but it takes about 3 months for a contract to hit the supply chain, particularly for manufacturers like HP that don't do JIT manufacturing. Dell part changes hit quicker, usually less than 30 days. And Broadcom was a big at Dell, holding court over almost every Wifi Sold by Dell for a number of years.

My laptop had issues over Labor day so I was looking at options at various manufacturers, one thing that surprised me quite heavily was the apparently complete lack of Broadcom Wifi at Dell now along with HP and others. Everything was Intel Wifi. This is especially surprising because in the past Dell has said there was a significant price advantage to Broadcom over Intel when questioned about Linux drivers.

I deduced that Dell has finally dropped Broadcom because of Linux compatibility, but that may not be the reason. Either way something has happened in the supply contracts to make Broadcom FOSS drivers, something big because they were adamant in the past they would never FOSS drivers. Maybe I'm over optimistic, but HP has been talking about Linux drivers being a requirement for a year or more.

A bit late

Posted Sep 10, 2010 9:03 UTC (Fri) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link]

so this is the quarter where intel gets to harvest from its linux investment. hopefully they are aware of it...

A bit late

Posted Sep 11, 2010 8:31 UTC (Sat) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]

Sounds strange to me: My Inspiron 8100 had Intel Wifi, my Inspiron 9100 had Intel Wifi and my Latitude C620 had Intel Wifi.

But then again, things might have changed since then (the C620 is three years old).

A bit late

Posted Sep 13, 2010 19:30 UTC (Mon) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]

When I bought my 610 the Intel was optional for about $20 extra and the standard one was a Dell branded Broadcom chipset. Like me you probably selected the Intel chipset because of Linux. AFAIK the Intel's were always available as an optional "upgrade" (probably because Intel required it by contract).

When I bought the 610 and for several years later the default Wifi on all the Dell Laptops (that I I looked at) were Dell branded Broadcom chipsets. The typical upgrade cost as I mentioned was anywhere from $20 to $50 dollars. That's a hell of a premium on Laptop even when they still cost upwards of $1500 and it's astronomical with prices half that.

But as I said when I checked the other day (on the models I looked at) the Dell branded option isn't even there anymore (and that's astounding in itself given Dell's desire to Brand everything possible). I couldn't even find laptops with Broadcom Wifi chipsets (I didn't look that far, just at a few major models and Brands). That's a hell of a change from default on every laptop at Dell. This is anecdotal evidence at best but for me it's pretty conclusive when taken into account against Broadcom's earlier statements that they would release FOSS drivers when Hell froze over (I believe the actual wording was Never because it would reveal competitive information). I can't see any other reason they would release FOSS drivers other than as mentioned in the thread that they got tired of updating their drivers and want to pass the burden to the Kernel team.

A bit late

Posted Sep 14, 2010 19:57 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]

You are probably right, there is a good chance that I chose that myself, and forget about it later (except for the 8100, which was a Centrino, those required the Intel Wifi for the Centrino brand).

A bit late

Posted Sep 10, 2010 9:58 UTC (Fri) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

I would guess it was rather more them getting fed up with the weight of maintaining all their own secret proprietary drivers (drivers which are used mostly in embedded situations - wifi APs etc.) and realizing that an in-tree approach to driver development saves everyone time and money.

Unstable internal kernel API FTW.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 16:49 UTC (Thu) by otavio (subscriber, #337) [Link]

Awesome!

I hope Broadcom put people to work together with Linux kernel developers to squash out remaining issues to properly get it into mainline (not stagging).

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 16:52 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

Huge progress. The only real gripe with my Dell Latitude 2110 (shipped with Ubuntu) has been the Broadcom's wl driver - which generates a large amount of CPU wakeups even when idle, and as the biggest irritation takes 20-30s after resume from suspend (or during boot up) to find and connect to a network.

I hope that brcm80211 will be part of http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download#Where_to_downl... very soon now.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 16:56 UTC (Thu) by merge (subscriber, #65339) [Link]

This makes my day! Looking so forward to seeing it running on my Lenovo G550.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 20:49 UTC (Thu) by b7j0c (guest, #27559) [Link]

thank you for addressing a major headache

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 21:33 UTC (Thu) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

I can't wait for the complaints:

- it isn't "free" enough
- it is technically inferior/non-performant for reasons X, Y, Z.
- good driver but it should have been submitted/reviewed in a different fashion
- good driver but Broadcom is still a terrible/open-source hostile company for reasons A, B, C.
- thanks but too little, too late

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 22:54 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Whatever. It's based on the mac80211 stack and that is a huge and a particularly unusually Linux-savvy move for Broadcom.

Even if they are not really that good it's already a very big and positive step. Far better then really to be expected.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 1:15 UTC (Fri) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link]

GregKH says they will be merged in .37:

http://twitter.com/gregkh/status/24027482819

If that is true then all 2011 distros (except Debian) will have FOSS Broadcom drivers.

Good times

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 11:19 UTC (Fri) by mfuzzey (subscriber, #57966) [Link]

By "merged" I suspect he means "present in 2.6.37 drivers/staging".
I suspect cleaning up the code enough to move it out of staging will take a little longer...

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 16, 2010 14:34 UTC (Thu) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link]

I backported it to 2.6.32 and it will be in Debian 6.0 'squeeze'.

Who's complaining now ?

Posted Sep 9, 2010 22:59 UTC (Thu) by dag- (subscriber, #30207) [Link]

I think you mix complaints and criticism. Each of the points you raise could be valid criticism if it's factual true. Being able to voice criticism is important if you have high standards. The worst thing for innovation is when nobody dares/cares to speak up :-)

Or do you prefer Linux Weekly News without comments ?

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 10:28 UTC (Fri) by nicooo (guest, #69134) [Link]

> I can't wait for the complaints:

- no documentation

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 17, 2010 15:15 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

>> I can't wait for the complaints:
>
> - no documentation

- eye cancer

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 9, 2010 23:38 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

Excellent! I wrote to them a while ago (when I was in a possession of a machine with such chipset) to do this. I am glad this has finally happened!

PS. Now all the lower end Dell machines will have wireless N support with stock Linux.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 1:23 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

My impression of Broadcom has always been that they're not hostile to open source, but just lazy. They'll do whatever they have to do in order to sell their chips, and not do anything their direct customers don't ask for. They don't have either the policy of having Linux support that Intel has, nor the policy of keeping their source hidden that nVidia has. They just don't bother to write detailed specifications or Linux drivers or agree to answer developer questions unless it's in their contract. So I don't think this is a particularly important development, aside from the fact that OEMs are starting to care, in general, about Linux support for chipsets for a wider variety of purposes, and that Broadcom might get to the point where writing Linux drivers is worthwhile for their development process regardless of whether their customers ask (since Linux is generally a good test platform and easy to write drivers for).

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 1:29 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

Hmm, I wonder if there is a non-free binary blob firmware in there somewhere. If not, awesome, merge that into mainline ASAP.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 1:50 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

According to the README, yes there is firmware:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-...

No worse than the Intel wireless situation I guess. I wonder if they will be willing to implement advanced features (like AP mode) in their firmware that Intel refuses to implement. Doesn't look like the firmware has reached its intended destination yet:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-fir...

It sounds like Linux has no control over the regulatory stuff, hmm.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 6:02 UTC (Fri) by obi (guest, #5784) [Link]

I selfishly hope that my hardware (BCM4322 [14e4:432b]) will soon be supported by this driver too.

There seem to be quite a few devices that are not supported by b43/b43legacy, nor by brcm80211. Hopefully these devices won't stay in limbo for too long.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 10:46 UTC (Fri) by linusw (subscriber, #40300) [Link]

We all welcome Broadcom to the 2000s.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 13:48 UTC (Fri) by xxiao (subscriber, #9631) [Link]

welcome the move.

Atheros is supporting mac80211/athxk, though most commercial vendors using Atheros chips are still using the old madwifi-like software in their products(most of them are using linux), is it because that the new stack is not stable enough? not sure about it.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 12, 2010 0:54 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Probably it's just that it's too new.

Atheros Madwifi (and related) had their own administrative interfaces for managing the drivers and card. The traditional Linux 'iwconfig/ifconfig' stuff was not useful for the advanced features that Atheros supported in their drivers.

It was not until very recently until Linux 'iw' and cfg80211 interface has reached something that closely approximated the functionality provided by Madwifi.

One of my favorite examples is how with 'iw' and 'madwifi stuff' you can setup your wifi card to be multiple virtual wifi cards. That is you can use one card to do something like simultaneously sniff network traffic while still attached to a access point. Your still limited by the hardware to one frequency, but it's still useful.

Broadcom releases an open-source driver for its wireless chipsets

Posted Sep 10, 2010 13:57 UTC (Fri) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link]

Great!

Now ADSL chips drivers for open GNU/Linux ADSL/Router... (yeah, we always want more :) )