April 08, 2020 posted by Martin Husemann

Back in 2018, Phil Nelson started a long needed WiFi-refresh, basically syncing our src/sys/net80211/ with the version from FreeBSD. He got a few things working, but then ran out of time and was unable to spend enough time on this to complete the task. I am now taking over this work, Phil hopes to join in again later this summer.

The main idea is to get better SMP (locking) support, support for newer (faster) WiFi standards, and support for virtual access points, while also making future updates (and import of drivers) from FreeBSD easier.

I have collected quite a few WiFi cards and USB dongles, but will ask for help with other hardware I don't have handy later.

I hope to have a working setup and a few working drivers by the end of this months.

Thanks to the NetBSD Foundation for funding this work! Please note that we are looking for donations again, see Fundraising 2020.

P.S.: for the curious: the first drivers I hope to have working are the ones we have already drivers for and I have hardware:

Realtek (0x2357) 802.11ac WLAN Adapter (0x011e)

(old) pinebook sdio wifi

cubietruck a20 wifi (broadcom 40181?)

GuruPlug wifi: Marvell, 802.11 SDIO (manufacturer 0x2df, product 0x9103)

followed by things other developers can convert and have hardware (with me assisting where needed), optionally followed by some of the ones where I have hardware but we have no driver yet: