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

Welcome to the official Linux Wireless wiki

This is the main place to get all kind of information about Wireless Networking (currently only IEEE 802.11) on the Linux operating system. This wiki features information for end-users, developers and vendors.

This site covers mostly the new mac80211-based drivers and the mac80211 stack itself along with the new userspace and in-kernel configuration interfaces nl80211 and cfg80211. If you want to keep track of the latest, please refer to our RecentChanges page.

News

July 22, 2011

With a little delay, Linus released 3.0. Besides numbering change, this version contains some interesting wireless changes :)

  • ar9170usb: remove driver (replaced by carl9170)
  • ath6kl: add support for AR6003 v2.1.1
  • ath9k_htc: add AP and P2P modes
  • ath9k_hw: support for AR9340
  • b43: fix DMA problems on some LP-PHY cards
  • iwlagn: fix performance regression since 2.6.35 (use cts-to-self protection)
  • iwlagn: support for new 105 series devices
  • rt2860sta: remove driver (replaced by mainline rt2800pci)
  • rt2870sta: remove driver (replaced by mainline rt2800usb)
  • rt2x00: Initial support for RT5370 USB devices
  • rt2x00: Enable support for RT53xx PCI devices by default
  • rt2x00: RT33xx device support is no longer experimental
  • rtlwifi: support for RTL8192SE chips added

May 19, 2011

Kernel 2.6.39 has been released with following important wireless changes:

  • b43: support for OFDM rates on N-PHYs (11M is not a limit anymore)
  • iwlagn: support for 2000 series devices
  • iwlwifi: fix "Received BA when not expected" regression
  • iwlwifi: fix injection on HT channels
  • rt2x00: very experimental support for RT5390 devices
  • rt2x00: fix hw crypto for WPA TKIP (Michael MIC failures)
  • rtl8192cu: new driver
  • zd1211rw: support for AP mode

March 15, 2011

2.6.38 has been released on March 15.

Worth noting changes:

  • ath5k: AHB bus support (AR231X?)
  • ath9k: fix power problems of certain 3 stream chipsets
  • b43: experimental support for N-PHY devices
  • b43legacy: fix false positive rfkill check
  • iwlagn: use both TX chains on some 6250 with faulty EEPROM
  • iwlwifi: use second RX chain when possible (devices with one TX were affected)
  • iwlwifi: advance power management for 6000g2b and up
  • rt2x00: fix hw crypto for WPA TKIP (Michael MIC failures)
  • rt2x00: support for RT3370/RT3390 devices
  • rt2x00: fix hw crypto in AP mode for older devices (e.g. rt73usb)
  • rtl8192ce: add new driver

December 3, 2009

2.6.32 has been released with 1020 patches touching wireless code.

Among the changes a few worth noting:

  • lots of wl1251 fixes, support for the 1271 chip
  • orinoco begins conversion to cfg80211
  • b43 LP PHY support (BCM4312 devices)
  • almost all mac80211 callbacks can now sleep (configure_filter was made able to)
  • rndis_wlan uses cfg80211
  • rtl8187 got rfkill switch support
  • ath9k gets AR9287 support and a large number of enhancements
  • wireless is now network namespace aware
  • nl80211 testmode command for factory testing/calibration
  • nl80211 reports BSS status
  • cfg80211 gains the ability to connect to APs
  • cfg80211 finally verifies that changing channel won't interfere with operation
  • cfg80211 drivers now can also parse country IEs
  • mac80211 no longer depends on wireless extensions
  • mac80211 scanning is much improved
  • mac80211 has a tracer now for driver interaction
  • mac80211 no longer creates the master netdev wmaster0
  • mac80211 dynamic power save default set to 100ms
  • mac80211 Mesh enhancements and config IE updated to match 802.11s draft 3.02
  • improvements and fixes for mac80211 resume
  • improvements to mac80211's connection loss detection

Quite a number of changes, and not small changes either – for example the ability for cfg80211 to emulate wireless extensions fully now or the LP PHY support in b43.

September 9, 2009

With again almost 600 patches related to wireless, the new 2.6.31 kernel comes with many wireless changes:

  • iwlwifi continues unification between 3945 and AGN hardware
  • the often-discussed rfkill rewrite, along with rfkill integration into cfg80211

  • rndis_wlan starts using cfg80211 as the first full-MAC driver

  • iwlwifi support for 3x3 802.11n hardware
  • cfg80211 now handles connecting to an ad-hoc network (including wext support)
  • initial support for rt2800usb, but still experimental
  • a new wl12xx driver for the TI 1251 B/G chip
  • ath5k has enabled AP mode
  • the hwsim driver can now separate its virtual radios into groups to allow testing mesh topologies
  • there's a new driver for new Intel integrated full-MAC hardware, also using cfg80211

News archive: view older news
(News list)


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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