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> There are no wifi cards supporting free firmware except this one. I think this one doesn't have free firmware either, it's just that the firmware stays on th
by wott 5y ago
> There are no wifi cards supporting free firmware except this one.
I think this one doesn't have free firmware either, it's just that the firmware stays on the card and thus is not loaded from the OS.
IMO the driver is free, but the firmware isn't.
- fsflover 5y agoYes, the laptop card has free firmware: https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k. The one in their phone Librem 5 has proprietary firmware which stays on the card. And it supports more bands.
- wott 5y ago> Yes, the laptop card has free firmware: https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k. No, it hasn't. You're confusing driver and firmware, again. What it has, and what you are showing me, is a free driver. The former is executed on the main processor of your computer, the second on the various chips of your card / device which can run various forms of code. The second can be loaded either from the main CPU (computer), or from some flash or some (P)ROM located on the board or directly inside the chips.
- fsflover 5y agoYes, it has. Sorry for the wrong link. Here is the right one: https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k_htc/open_firmware https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k_htc/open_firmware.
- makomk 5y agoAs far as I know, the PCIe-based Atheros 802.11n cards don't have any firmware at all - just hardware state machines controlled by the open source driver.
- zbentley 5y agoWhere is the line between "hardware state machines" and firmware? Flashability? Existence of programmable storage on the device? Other? Genuinely curious, I know next to nothing about this space.