NOTE: this page is for archival only, see the note at the end of the page.

Existing Linux Wireless drivers

We currently have a fair amount of working drivers that cover most of the available wireless networking cards. However, they don't implement all features and may have some issues, due to various reasons like companies not providing specs. Below is an alphabetically sorted list of drivers and what they currently can and can't do.

All drivers can run in ["../modes#STA"Station mode], but not all support the other modes, this is also shown in the table below.

Driver

["../modes#AP"AP]

["../modes#IBSS"ad-hoc]

["../modes#MON"Adv. Monitor] FootNote(monitor all frames during regular operation)FootNote(wireless-dev development kernel only)

PHY modes

mac80211 FootNote(driver is ported to mac80211 stack)

["en/users/Drivers/acx1xx" acx1xx]FootNote(not in wireless-dev)

?

?

?

B

yes

["en/users/Drivers/adm8211" adm8211 (ADMtek devices)]

no

no

?

B

?

["en/users/Drivers/bcm43xx" bcm43xx (Broadcom chips)]

yesFootNote(wireless-dev development kernel only)

yesFootNote(wireless-dev development kernel only)

yes

B/GFootNote(802.11a devices exist, but currently can't be used with this driver, A/B/G devices will work in B/G mode only)

yes

[http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/ Intel ipw2100]

no

yes

no

B

no

[http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ Intel ipw2200]

[http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipw2200-ap yes]

yes

no

A/B/G

no

[http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi Intel ipw3945]

?

?

?

A/B/G

yes

["en/users/Drivers/madwifi" madwifi (All PCI and Cardbus Chips/NO USB Support)]FootNote(not in wireless-dev)BR /!\ madwifi is not fully open source

yes

yes

yes

A/B/G

[http://snapshots.madwifi.org/dadwifi/ yes]FootNote(porting the driver is in active development)

["en/users/Drivers/p54" p54 (Intersil chips)]

no

no

?

B/GFootNote(A/B/G devices not supported yet)

?

["en/users/Drivers/rt61pci" rt61pci]

?

?

?

A/B/GFootNote(802.11a capabilities depend on the actual radio chip used)

?

["en/users/Drivers/rt73usb" rt73usb]

?

?

?

B/G

?

["en/users/Drivers/rtl8187" rtl8187]

no

no

?

B/G

?

["en/users/Drivers/zd1211rw" zd1211rw (ZyDAS ZD1211/ZD1211B chips)]

no

no

?

B/GFootNote(A/B/G devices not supported yet)

yes



This is a static dump of the old wiki, taken after locking it in January 2015. The new wiki is at https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/.
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