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 |
|
["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)] |
yes |
yes |
|||
[http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/ Intel ipw2100] |
no |
yes |
no |
B |
no |
[http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ Intel ipw2200] |
yes |
no |
A/B/G |
no |
|
[http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi Intel ipw3945] |
? |
? |
? |
A/B/G |
yes |
["en/users/Drivers/madwifi" madwifi]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 |
? |
? |
|
["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 |
? |
yes |