Broadcom Docs

[Erik Trulsson]

On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 11:16:52AM -0400, Arnaud Lacombe wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 10:39 AM, Adrian Chadd <adrian at freebsd.org> wrote:
> > The non-embedded atheros NICs (ie, not the ath6k series stuff) is all
> > run by the host CPU. There's no firmware that runs on the NIC.
> > This was why the HAL was binary for so long. Note it is no longer
> > binary and hasn't been for a few years.
> >
> OOTH, AFAIK, Linux folks never used the binary HAL, and had it
> working, but it was GPL licensed from the beginning.

For Atheros wireless controllers Linux people used to use the madwifi
driver which did use the binary HAL and otherwise was dual-licensed
(BSD/GPL).

Nowadays Linux people use the ath5k/ath9k drivers which do not use the
binary HAL and which had just about reached the level of actually being
usable when source code for the HAL was released.

(The madwifi driver was never included in the standard Linux kernel,
mostly due to the binary HAL. The ath5k/ath9k drivers are nowadays
included in the Linux kernel.)


-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se