Linux 5.5 Staging Changes Land With New WiFi Driver To Improved exFAT Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux 5.5 Staging Changes Land With New WiFi Driver To Improved exFAT Support

Greg Kroah-Hartman mailed in the staging area changes today for the Linux 5.5 kernel and they have already been pulled into mainline...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.5-Staging

[polarathene]

Is there a good driver for 802.11ax support on Linux? I suppose it'll be a while before we have an open-source one that's decent and/or in kernel?

[Sonadow]

Is there a good driver for 802.11ax support on Linux? I suppose it'll be a while before we have an open-source one that's decent and/or in kernel?

Keep dreaming.

There are tens of 802.11ac USB chipsets but how many have an in-kernel Linux driver?

Just friggin 2. and they are less-common chipsets from Mediatek.

[polarathene]

Keep dreaming.

There are tens of 802.11ac USB chipsets but how many have an in-kernel Linux driver?

Just friggin 2. and they are less-common chipsets from Mediatek.

Only needs the one really if it's decent. I have a product with the mediatek ac chipset using mt76 driver. But it's been causing problems(iirc it caused kernel panics after downloading at 1MBps(max my ISP is offering) for few hours. Went back to my 802.11n adapter/chipset instead which is rock solid but not as performant for things like Steam Remote Play. 802.11ax would be great for the lower latency afaik.

[starshipeleven]

There are tens of 802.11ac USB chipsets but how many have an in-kernel Linux driver?

That's like 90% Realtek crap and a Broadcom or two?

God I miss the days of Atheros, Qualcomm has basically dropped any USB chipset after the aquisition.

It's seriously getting to the point where buying a GL.Inet router with Wifi AC and use that as a "dongle" over ethernet is the only way.

[jabl]

God I miss the days of Atheros, Qualcomm has basically dropped any USB chipset after the aquisition.

Still happy with my ath9k based router at home. But yeah, tragic that there's no blob-free stuff for the newer wifi standards.

[starshipeleven]

Still happy with my ath9k based router at home. But yeah, tragic that there's no blob-free stuff for the newer wifi standards.

Firmware blobs are fine, the issue is that there is no decent, stable and mainline wifi driver support for modern USB dongles. For Wifi n you can pretty much connect anything and it will 80% "just work" as it is using supported hardware. (atheros, ralink, realtek, whatever. Only Broadcomm needs you to install drivers separately)

For miniPCIe or M.2 slots you can use Qualcomm or Intel and wifi ac will 100% work fine, even bluetooth. Cheap and plentiful, easy to find, no issue here. Also for wifi routers it's fine (as Qualcomm wifi chipsets are usually supported and either integrated in the SoC or over PCIe)

For USB Wifi ac dongles it's still a

1. "buy random dongle"
2. "connect"
3. "does not work"
4. "search github for some crappy code drops from the manufacturer that were just updated slightly to still compile with modern kernels"
5. "download compile install"
6. "if it does not core dump the kernel and works, then great, otherwise try another"
7. "if there is no driver or all you try don't work, send back the dongle to the seller"

And actual pros that don't want to waste months:

1. check the aircrack-ng github project repos first to see what usb wifi chipsets they can actually buy at all (as they maintain many out-of-tree modules for each various USB thing with actual Monitor Mode support, that is needed by Aircrack-ng to work).
2. look for wifi cracking usb dongles as they are the ones that guarantee what chipset used inside, and have not undergone 5 different revisions where they changed chipset. (and also usually have decent external antenna mounts)

Seriously it's disheartening. To have a wifi dongle that works without wasting months I need to act like a l33t haxxor and buy l33t haxxor wifi dongles.


It's almost as the usb wifi dongle market has shrunk and now only low-end still exists (mostly Realtek, which is low end)

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Happy to see rtl8723bs clean-ups, hopefully one day it will be promoted from staging.

[timofonic]

What's so new about exFAT?

[Space Heater]

I suppose it'll be a while before we have an open-source one that's decent and/or in kernel?

Intel's iwlwifi supports 802.11ax for a while now, why do you believe you'll have to wait?