3 ms·

How do they do Wi-Fi? Bluetooth?

• rosser 12y ago
  Bluetooth isn't mentioned on the campaign page [1], but the wifi is ath9k. [1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-laptop
  • david-given 12y ago
    Last I heard, radio firmware pretty much had to be locked down or the regulators wouldn't certify you; the principle here being that as all modern radio chipsets are basically software-defined radios, they're indistinguishable from incredibly effective jammers. They consider the right to dial emergency services on a cell phone and have it work to be more important than the right to play with hardware. So I'm interested to see that there's actual open source firmware for the ath9k, and it looks like the hardware will accept unsigned firmware images. Have the rules changed? Or are the regulators simply less concerned about wifi relative to mobile phone radios?
    • bvttf 12y ago
      Long answer: http://youtu.be/WOcYTqoSQ68 http://youtu.be/WOcYTqoSQ68 Short answer, iirc the atheros will usually play within the rules, and the free drivers aren't super officially supported so what those crazy hackers do isn't so much their responsibility. But that's based on half-remembering that talk, which I watched five months ago.