[arch-dev-public] Broadcom releases a mac80211-based GPL2 driver for the 802.11n wireless chipsets

[Pierre Schmitz]

On Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:37:40 +0200, Thomas Bächler
<thomas at archlinux.org> wrote:
> After
> http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2009/07/20/microsoft-contributes-to-linux-kernel-a-caos-theory-qa/
> in 2009, pigs start flying again in 2010: Broadcom has released a driver
> for their newer 802.11n wireless chipsets that is
> - licensed under GPL2
> - based on the linux-wireless mac80211 framework
> - already included into linux-staging-next, which means it will be
> available as a staging driver in 2.6.37 and it will be polished to be
> included into the usual linux-wireless tree
> 
> This is great news for everyone, as this means you can soon just buy any
> laptop without having to worry about wireless chipset issues (Dell
> usually uses those chips, but they are not the only ones). For more
> information and the happiness of the linux wireless developers, see:
> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.wireless.general/55418

As I have such a chipset in my netbook I have made a PKGBUILD which can
be installed alongside the kernel without any conflicts using
compat-wireless: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=42670

Just remove the boradcom-wl package and install this one. So far its
working fine. This driver is a lot faster in scanning and associating
with an AP than the closed driver. Unfortunately you cannot connect to
any channel above 12 (the crda package does not help here). But well,
let's not forget that this is still a staging driver.

Greetings,

Pierre

-- 
Pierre Schmitz, https://users.archlinux.de/~pierre