diff --git a/website/content/en/status/report-2025-01-2025-03/lkpi-wireless.adoc b/website/content/en/status/report-2025-01-2025-03/lkpi-wireless.adoc new file mode 100644 --- /dev/null +++ b/website/content/en/status/report-2025-01-2025-03/lkpi-wireless.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +=== LinuxKPI 802.11 Wireless Update + +Contact: Bjoern A. Zeeb + +Contact: The FreeBSD wireless mailing list + +With multiple wireless projects ongoing, this report focuses on the efforts using permissively licensed Linux wireless drivers mostly unmodified on FreeBSD. +The currently supported drivers are man:iwlwifi[4], man:rtw88[4], and man:rtw89[4]. + +The man:rtw88[4] driver was made to work (associate) again (link:https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=283142[Bugzilla PR#283142]). +In addition, thanks to the massive help debugging and testing by the community, the cause for leaking memory got resolved (link:https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=283903[Bugzilla PR#283903]). + +Tunables to selectively control HT and VHT support in man:rtw88[4], and man:rtw89[4] were added. +HW crypto offload was enabled by default for CCMP. +It turns out that a lot of users are still using TKIP. +Work is in on the way to support this and will hopefully land early in Q2. + +HT (11n) and VHT (11ac) support are now also compiled in by default for the LinuxKPI based drivers. +The drivers and entire framework changes were merged from main to stable/14 so both branches have the same level of support. + +People installing firmware using man:fwget[8] will get HT and VHT automatically enabled for man:iwlwifi[4] 2200 (mostly AX200), AX210, and BE200 chipset generations. +Older man:iwlwifi[4] chipset generations, man:rtw88[4], and man:rtw89[4] will need extra work in LinuxKPI or the driver to provide working support. + +It was announced that man:iwlwififw[4] will follow man:rtw88[4], and man:rtw89[4] firmware and be removed from the base system in April 2025 for both main and stable/14 in favor of the ports based solution and man:fwget[8] support (link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-stable/2025-March/002763.html[Announcement]). + +Sponsor: The FreeBSD Foundation