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Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- my123 5y agoInteresting that Apple still uses Broadcom Wi-Fi + BT chips in most of their product range despite lots of issues with them. Apple Watch nowadays is using Apple (codenamed Marconi) Wi-Fi + BT chips, hopefully they'll switch all their product lineup to those.
- relevant_thing 5y agoAre those from Infineon->Intel->Apple modem lineage or is that a different team?
- AceJohnny2 5y agoI think the acquisition of the Intel modem group is too recent to have been integrated into the Apple watch
- sroussey 5y agoWhy would they have not used them before the acquisition?
- my123 5y agoApple Watch uses Intel IBIS or Qualcomm cellular modems depending on model (for those with cellular). Wi-Fi/BT is handled separately by Apple-designed chips for the newer ones.
- gumby 5y agoOne of the recent phones (X or 11?) used Intel for part of its builds (as far as I remember you couldn’t tell from serial number). Apple had a lot of problems and swore off the Intel parts, which killed Intel’s wireless business. I assumed Apple bought the Intel product line for IP, especially after that episode.
- jerrysievert 5y agothe iPhone 7 used the intel wireless chip. it was a major downgrade for me from my iPhone 6 at the time: speeds were lower for data transfers, and reception was less (could be attributed to an antenna change?) overall, I was very happy to get a phone that didn't use the intel chips.
- kalleboo 5y agoApple used Intel modems for many generations - the iPhone 7, X/8, XS, 11. For some generations they used Qualcomm chips in the models for CDMA regions since Intel didn't make a CDMA modem. So you could tell which chip you'd get from the iPhone model number. Apple ditched Intel due to Intel being at least a year behind on 5G. These modems were all LTE modems though. They've always used separate Broadcom chips for WiFi/Bluetooth.
- TwoBit 5y ago> due to Intel being at least a year behind That's not the only thing Intel is at least a year behind on.
- Reason077 5y ago> "For some generations they used Qualcomm chips in the models for CDMA regions since Intel didn't make a CDMA modem." Yeah. The Qualcomm-equipped international version of the iPhone X notoriously got significantly better LTE speeds compared to the Intel-modem version sold in UK/Europe.
- reader_mode 5y ago>which killed Intel’s wireless business I was under the impression that modern laptops ship with intel WiFi cards (I think I saw some Lenovo laptop use it). Do you mean it killed their modems ?
- GloriousKoji 5y agoI'll just leave this old 2012 article link here. https://www.macrumors.com/2012/12/03/apple-hiring-former-texas-instruments-engineers-in-israel/ https://www.macrumors.com/2012/12/03/apple-hiring-former-tex...
- my123 5y agoFor Wi-Fi/BT, it's an Apple team separate from modem efforts.
- anitil 5y agoWhat are the issue with Broadcom chips?
- SilverRed 5y agoNot sure about OP but the hardest part about getting linux on a macbook is getting wifi to work because there are no FOSS drivers.
- zodiakzz 5y agoGenuinely curious, is it harder than getting Linux working with the proprietary Apple variant of ARM? Or are you talking pre-M1?
- ben-schaaf 5y agoThe M1 still uses a broadcom wifi chip: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25669358 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25669358, so presumably because it's a newer chip it'll be more difficult.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- notaplumber 5y agoSure there are, it's called brcmfmac. If the AsahiLinux team hasn't already got it working, certainly Corellium did a few months ago in their much hyped public demo image. https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/brcm80211 https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/brcm80211 OpenBSD has also added support to their bwfm(4) driver already for 6.9. Wireless is absolutely not the hardest problem for the M1 Mac, or running on any Mac, for that matter.
- IntelMiner 5y agoBroadcom Wi-Fi languished for something around a decade under the "b43" driver before Broadcom showed up with their brcmfmac driver, it caused significant anger within the kernel community that they decided to write a new driver instead of just augmenting the existing one
- totetsu 5y agoMarconi is named after inventor of the radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Marconi?wprov=sfla1
- QuercusMax 5y agoI know it's not pronounced like that in Italian, but I always read his name as "Googly-Elmo" Marconi.
- ndesaulniers 5y agoWow. I can't unsee that.
- wumpus 5y agoThat just wrecked my ability to say the name of a prominent 15th century Italian dance master. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Ebreo_da_Pesaro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guglielmo_Ebreo_da_Pesaro
- duckfang 5y agoI've always been more of a Caroso fan, especially his second treatise. I've even learned Alegrezza d'amore from both his first and second works and did them back to back :) Then again, Petit Riens is my favorite danes of Pesaro's... I call it mosh pit riens given how rowdy it can be!
- ksec 5y ago>Apple Watch nowadays is using Apple (codenamed Marconi) Wi-Fi + BT chips, hopefully they'll switch all their product lineup to those. Apple has renewed their WiFI commitment to Broadcom for at least another 3 years. Marking WiFI, or in fact any Wireless Controller is hard, making it that is also a moving target ( Both WiFi 6E/ WiFi 7 and 5G / 3GPP Rel 17 ) is even harder. But if Apple do intend to make their own WiFi ( Which makes perfect sense from an BOM cost reduction perspective ), please also bring back AirPort Wireless Router.
- daat678 5y agoWould you have a link or article discussing this Marconi project? I’m always interested in Apple’s wireless chips designs. A web search brings me back to this thread.
- my123 5y agohttps://gist.github.com/woachk/943828f37c14563a607a26116435bf27 https://gist.github.com/woachk/943828f37c14563a607a26116435b... includes some tiny tidbits on it. The firmware can be extracted out of an IPSW/OTA download, where it is present in the Firmware directory.
- daat678 5y agoGreat thanks I'll check it out
- derekerdmann 5y ago> 1. Packet captures don’t use the correct channel I've also seen this on a 2020 Intel MacBook Air. I assumed it was a Big Sur issue but had never tried it on Catalina. Sniffing from the command line did pick up the correct channel: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/49317/36875 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/49317/36875
- Nextgrid 5y agoBig Sur has been a significant drop in quality, even worse than Catalina. Some are bugs such as this one and some are just deliberately stupid design decisions like the changes to the notifications. I’m worried for the future of the Mac.
- stock_toaster 5y agoEarly versions of Catalina were also not great. (Heck, early versions of any major macos release tend to be relatively buggy!) I think people tend to forget things like that, and only remember the later releases of an OS since that is the version they are likely switching off of it to the newer one. I personally have found big sir no more buggy than most releases. Better than some[1], worse than others. About middling. Not bad for it including new hardware (m1)! [1]: ye gods, remember how bad 10.10 was with discoveryd before they rolled back to mdnsresponder! yikes!
- faitswulff 5y agoI have to wonder if all issues with Apple's software quality are due to Apple redirecting resources to gracefully handling the Apple silicon transfer.
- AlexandrB 5y agomacOS quality has been declining for years. It can't all be due to the M1 transition.
- acdha 5y agoThis is a popular trope but I’d really want to see some supporting data. It’s notoriously hard to correct for only hearing from people who found something they don’t like, people assuming their experience is universally shared, and for people to tend to forget old problems.
- fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
- lebrad 5y agoWhy do they use Broadcom silicon for their wireless stack?
- userbinator 5y agoIt might be a matter of tradition/long-term contracts - Apple has used Broadcom for a long time.
- imwillofficial 5y agoBroadcom makes some good stuff now and then (Rpi’s)
- SilverRed 5y agoIsn't broadcom the worst part of the rpi? It's impossible to boot the pi without loading a binary blob backdoor first
- dannyw 5y agoHow about the fact that Broadcom essentially enabled the Pi to be created in the first place?
- userbinator 5y agoBroadcom is neither the first nor only company making SoCs. The RPi people just happened to have someone working there.
- imwillofficial 5y agoNobody said any of those things. The Rpi is good. Broadcom makes it.
- IntelMiner 5y agoBroadcom "enabled" the Pi to be created because the SoC for the original RPi 1 was a flop. They wanted to use it for Set Top Box (Cable TV, Google TV etc) devices but couldn't find any buyers One of the engineers who worked on it worked out a deal with Broadcom to simply reuse the design and market it toward education instead
- newsHere 5y agoBut but but but its Apple Owners will casually dismiss anything negative. Post purchase Rationalization on heavily marketed products is bad for consumers.
- Black101 5y agoApple devices are good for newbies that like it simple... not sure what else they are good for.. Apple is even lying when talking about privacy...
- chrisbrandow 5y agoSo, I’m dumb about this stuff, but I have a wireless keyboard that uses a WiFi dongle to connect. I’ve lost connection with it a few times on my new m1 Mac. I had never lost connection with it in the previous 5 years. Could this be related to the phenomenon the authors are describing?
- rthomas6 5y agoIs it really wifi? Or is it Bluetooth?
- SamBam 5y agoBluetooth wouldn't need a dongle on a modern computer. But I'd be surprised that it's wifi and not some other frequency radio communication.
- 55555 5y agoThey always seem to come with a dongle just incase though, and sometimes people use the dongle despite having bluetooth, or plug them in and then connect to the computer's built-in bluetooth.
- yarcob 5y agoThe problem with Bluetooth is that it just doesn't work well when you want to use one keyboard or mouse with multiple computers. For this reason I prefer the dongles. Want to use your mouse on a different Mac? Just plug the dongle in a different computer. I don't know how often I ended up at the password prompt with no way to type the password because the keyboard didn't connect, or was connected to a different Mac, and I had no idea how to get it to connect to the Mac I was trying to start.
- marcosscriven 5y agoThis is why I like the Logitech MX keys/mouse. Can have multiple dongles and just press a button to choose which one you connect to.
- roody15 5y agoLeopard = meh Snow Leopard = Awesome Lion = meh Yosemite = ok Sierra = good High Sierra = Awesome Mojave = meh Catalina = meh Big Sur = meh (snow leopard and high sierra were the best IMO) Mac Admin for 15 years
- dandongus 5y agoyou skipped ML (meh) and mavericks (best)
- xbar 5y agoHigh Sierra's hatred of all my USB devices was an experience like no other. I feel a reciprocal spite.
- andrewmcwatters 5y agoThe Snow Leopard days of the Mac made me want one. Everything since then has been a disappointment. I miss the big little details like the Welcome intros and beautiful usage of CoreAnimation. Now it seems like nothing uses it, and macOS seems far far less magical than ever. I could never see Apple coming up with the original Time Machine design anymore.
- ultrarunner 5y agoQuartzComposer was really impressive and enabled a bunch of really useful applications (as far as data-driven graphic displays go). And now it's just… gone.
- grishka 5y agoHonestly, it's easy to hate on Apple, but you start to appreciate macOS once you have to use Windows or Linux for anything serious. Yes, there is no good desktop OS, but macOS sucks the least, and by far.
- paulintrognon 5y agoI think that is just your opinion, and not objective truth. I am a happy debian user, currently forced to use macOS at my current company, and can't say I have a great time developping on a mac. As a web developper, Linux is great: native docker, native linux terminal experience... I however think this is a personnal opinoin, and I won't argue that Linux is better that macOS. If I has been a macOS user from the start I would have maybe been equally unhappy to be forced to use Linux. What i'm trying to say is, we are all different people with different tastes and priorities, and I don't think we can objectivly say that one OS is better (or "sucks the least").
- sitzkrieg 5y agoany advanced development on new macs is pretty rip
- thewileyone 5y ago"These are new features that are improvements over older versions ... " - Apple /s
- oolonthegreat 5y agoif wifi packet capturing is broken, then this effects web browsing too right? if most packets received are garbage, then this cuts down the bandwidth/download speed etc.?
- detaro 5y agoUnlikely, packet capture here refers specifically to modes and tools for monitoring raw network frames, which are not what's used in normal operation.