ath10k firmware

Firmware is temporalily available at https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware until it will be available from linux-firmware.git.

The firmware is searched from directory ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0 under the system firmware directory, usually /lib/firmware. For example, here's a listing from an Ubuntu system where it's under /lib/firmware:

$ ls -l /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0/
total 508
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   2116 Oct 22 11:01 board.bin*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 254564 Oct 22 11:01 firmware-2.bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 249093 Oct 22 11:01 firmware.bin*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   5402 Oct 22 11:01 otp.bin*
$

Description of the files:

board.bin: board file for the firmware
firmware-2.bin: embedded firmware file (includes both firmware and otp) for ath10k versions supporting FW API 2
firmware.bin: firmware file for older ath10k versions supporting only FW API 1
otp.bin: otp file for older ath10k versions supporting only FW API 1

Update firmware

First download the firmware image from ath10k-firmware.git:

https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware/tree/master/

In this example we use firmware-2.bin_10.1.467.2-1 from 10.1 directory. Then just copy that file as firmware-2.bin to the ath10k firmware directory:

cp firmware-2.bin_10.1.467.2-1 /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0/firmware-2.bin

Then reload ath10k (or restart the system) and the new firmware is in use.

Note: In some distributions the firmware location can be different than /lib/firmware.

Firmware branches

ath10k firmware has different branches, they are described below.

main branch

Firmware versions 999.999.0.x.

Supports AP mode, STA mode, Ad-Hoc and P2P. But AP mode is not that well tested, especially problems with DFS.

10.1 branch

Firmware versions 10.1.x.

Branch focusing on AP mode. Supports DFS. STA mode works but not well tested. No Ad-Hoc or P2P support.

Firmware API versions

Because firmware changes between versions we have introduced firmware API concept to ath10k. This makes it possible to support different versions of ath10k.

Firmware API 1

The first version. Firmware images are in separate files: firmware.bin and otp.bin. There's no FW IE support. Deprecated since March 2014.

Firmware API 2

Embedding both firmware and otp images into same file firmware-2.bin. Firmware meta data provided through FW IE. Added in commit 1a222435a dated Sep 27 2013, for Linux 3.13.