The new Linksys WRT1900ACS router

Posted Oct 10, 2015 12:13 UTC (Sat) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402)
Parent article: The new Linksys WRT1900ACS router

Marvell have been known to have a funny idea of "open source drivers", so here's hoping this is good news.

The new Linksys WRT1900ACS router

Posted Oct 10, 2015 19:16 UTC (Sat) by troglobit (subscriber, #39178) [Link]

True dat! We've worked with Marvell chipsets for over a decade, because their
silicon is probably the best -- in fewest errata ever (!), their newer PHYs rock
and both their SOHO and Prestera line are awesome! Sure they've changed
and improved a lot in their software/driver and licensing, but they still don't
fully understand Free/Open Source software.

I remember they once had Lennert Buytenhek on the payroll, that was exciting
times and we could see the first DSA and chipset drivers for Marvell SOHO chips
being committed to the kernel. Today it seems we are finally seeing the start of
a common framework for switches (switchdev), which is extremely cool! I hope
the major chipset vendors will realize they need to consider dropping their own
huge corporate snake nests of SW-stacks and upstream patches and new drivers
to the kernel instead -- not just for their low-end SOHO devices, but also for
more top of the line chipsets that we want to use for OpenFlow etc.

The new Linksys WRT1900ACS router

Posted Oct 10, 2015 20:50 UTC (Sat) by arnd (subscriber, #8866) [Link] (2 responses)

When you install OpenWRT, all the code running on the CPU is open source, however I think the WiFi chipset is running a closed source blob:

https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/blob/master/bin/firmware...

This is unfortunately the case for all 802.11ac routers I'm aware of (Qualcomm Atheros, Broadcom, Mediatek, Marvell, Realtek), but it's still different from the previous generation of Atheros (ath9k) based routers that are fully open source, cheap and widely available.

If I'm mistaken and the firmware running on the 88W8864 wifi chip is now open source, that would indeed be major news.

The new Linksys WRT1900ACS router

Posted Oct 11, 2015 9:17 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> If I'm mistaken and the firmware running on the 88W8864 wifi chip is now open source, that would indeed be major news.

One - is it illegal for it to be Open Source?

Two - there's been various comments - including here on lwn - about how that would be BAD news because it makes it far too easy for bad actors to steal the spectrum, and effectively destroy the capability of using wireless :-(

Much as I'd like to see stuff open-source, the problem is that by upping the power output, individuals gain at the expense of the commons, so everybody (who can) ups power output. Those who can usually end up worse off, those who can't end up pretty much excluded.

Cheers,
Wol

The new Linksys WRT1900ACS router

Posted Oct 11, 2015 18:58 UTC (Sun) by arnd (subscriber, #8866) [Link]

I think a lot of devices can be hacked to behave in bad ways on the wireless spectrum already, both softmac devices that have no firmware and those that have a proprietary firmware for the data path but not for controlling the radio.

The problem for binary-only wireless firmware is the same as for binary-only host (on the router) firmware, that it makes it impossible to fix problems, most notably the bufferbloat that is pervasive in all of them.