Realtek Contributes New "RTW88" 802.11ac WiFi Driver To The Linux Kernel

[Michael]

Michael

in the article you said:

"Greg Kroah-Hartman has already removed the "RTLWIFI" driver from the Linux kernel's staging area. So RTW88 is the successor to the long-in-standing RTLWIFI driver. Nuking the RTLWIFI driver code lightened up the staging area by 123,321 lines. "

But I'm not seeing any commit about removing rtlwifi in linux git (last merge from Torvalds 12 hours ago) https://github.com/torvalds/linux/se...i&type=Commits and it would also make 0 sense to remove it as rtw88 does not support the same hardware.

Where did you see this removal happening?

It's in staging-next with the 5.2 merge window not open yet: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux...06d7e7e3334613

[Michael]

Does this mean we are getting some new linux-libre compatible Wifi cards for notebooks?

Binary blobs are in linux-firmware.git.

[jtoaspern]

No, firmware blobs are required.
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/log/?qt=grep&q=rtw88

What a shame. At least we still have some Atheros chips where thats not an issue.

[starshipeleven]

What a shame. At least we still have some Atheros chips where thats not an issue.

the wifi n ones. Anything newer requires a blob.

Although it's interesting to note that the firmware for the wifi ac from Qualcomm/Atheros is available under NDA and a company called candela tech has made their own blob http://www.candelatech.com/ath10k.php which is usually better than stock and what is used by default now in OpenWrt (router-wifi-embedded-device-oriented distro).

[hansdegoede]

Are they frikkin' serious? Dropping rtlwifi when rtw88 is not even compatible with 80211abgn?

Michael

in the article you said:

"Greg Kroah-Hartman has already removed the "RTLWIFI" driver from the Linux kernel's staging area. So RTW88 is the successor to the long-in-standing RTLWIFI driver. Nuking the RTLWIFI driver code lightened up the staging area by 123,321 lines. "

But I'm not seeing any commit about removing rtlwifi in linux git (last merge from Torvalds 12 hours ago) https://github.com/torvalds/linux/se...i&type=Commits and it would also make 0 sense to remove it as rtw88 does not support the same hardware.

Where did you see this removal happening?

The original rtlwifi driver from realtek is one big #ifdef fest to allow building targetting various NIC models, but over time realtek has forked its own driver and as such even though the #ifdef-s are there one branch of rtlwifi will only actually result in a working driver if build for one specific NIC / chip model.

So there are multiple versions of rtlwifi, first there is drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi which is a cleaned up version of realtek's code supporting various older cards. This version is not going anywhere, then there is a newer fork/branch of rtlwifi in drivers/staging/rtlwifi. This new branch (which is quite messy code directly from realtek) supports the RTL8822BE PCIE version and only that chip. That version of rtlwifi is now being dropped since the new rtw88 also supports the RTL8822BE PCIE version, see:

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging.git/commit/?id=ef4a0c3173736a957d1495e9a706d7e7e3334613

[moriel5]

Hopefully, these drivers will actually be competent.
As for rtlwifi, don't the staging drivers eventually go out of staging to, well, nonstaging?
So perhaps by Linux 5.2, AirCrack could drop the reliance for the staging drivers.

[starshipeleven]

As for rtlwifi, don't the staging drivers eventually go out of staging to, well, nonstaging?

They can also go directly to the trash bin.

[LoveRPi]

There's no support for USB or SDIO...