Linux Patches Posted For Enabling WiFi On Apple M1/T2 Platforms

Another important step toward Apple M1 hardware being useful under Linux is in the process of being realized... Working WiFi. The initial "request for comments" patch series was sent out today enabling the Broadcom "BRCMFMAC" driver to work for the wireless LAN support on the M1 SoC as well as with the Apple T2 platforms.

Hector Martin of the Asahi Linux project for enabling Apple Silicon Arm support under Linux sent out the set of 34 RFC patches for supporting the Apple T2 and M1 platforms with this upstream Broadcom open-source network driver. These patches have been tested with the Broadcom FullMAC hardware used by the Apple T2/M1 platforms including the BCM4355C1, BCM4364B2/B3, BCM4377B3, BCM4378B1, and BCM4387C2.

Hector noted in the patch cover letter, "As usual for Apple, things are ever so slightly different on these machines from every other Broadcom platform. In particular, besides the normal device/firmware support changes, a large fraction of this series deals with selecting and loading the correct firmware. These platforms use multiple dimensions for firmware selection, and the values for these dimensions are variously sourced from DT or OTP."

Over one thousand lines of kernel code was written for enabling the Apple M1/T2 platforms to work with the existing Broadcom Linux kernel driver for WiFi support. See the RFC patch series for all the details if interested.