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Atheros Hardware Abstraction Layer Source Is Released

Posted by kdawson on from the no-blobs-here dept.

chrb writes "With the recent discussion here on proprietary blobs in the Linux kernel, it's nice to see that today Sam Leffler has released the source for the Atheros Hardware Abstraction Layer under the ISC license, which is both GPL and BSD compatible. The Atheros chipset is used in many laptops, so this is another important step towards running a completely free distribution."

9 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. YAY by iamwhoiamtoday · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a Macbook from just over a year ago, and it uses a Atheros wireless card, and it's the biggest pain to get running in Linux. Hopefully, with the Source released, it will be easier in the future to get the wireless working on this model of computer.

  2. Interesting by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is interesting, as there are three Atheros drivers, all different. Madwifi uses the HAL. Ath5 is in the Linux trunk and doesn't (I think). Ath9 was developed by Atheros and probably uses the HAL but I didn't check. Sam was mostly interested in this because he wanted to work on mesh networking - it's good to see he's still involved.

    The argument about BLOBs - binary loadable objects in the kernel - is not new, despite Bruce Byfield's recent report. I guess he just doesn't read the kernel list and other distro internal discussions, where this has been going on for a decade. And FSF did not "redefine" anything, they've always held that opinion.

    It would be nice to draw a line at the hardware bus, with all above that Open Source and all below that whatever the hardware manufacturer likes because we don't deal with it. But BLOBs break that, because they are both above and below the bus. If we're going to handle the code, we can't really deny that there's a computer there running closed-source code. And given the degree to which wifi firmware sucks the world would be nicer if it was Free Software. Now, we just have to drive some sense into FCC, etc.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
    1. Re:Interesting by cheater512 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually ath9k is fully open source by Atheros.
      http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/26/2138228
      No firmware, no HAL, nothing.

      I've bought two of the cards to support Atheros even though the drivers arent 100% just yet.
      I also have a older b/g card which works superbly.

  3. Working sleep mode? by Picass0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does this mean the sleep function will finally work as it should without draining the batteries? I have yet to see a laptop running Linux go into hibernate mode and not bleed off the batteries.

    1. Re:Working sleep mode? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you can prove that it bleeds off the batteries more than Linux, we would like to see numbers, please. Linux isn't in charge once the machine is asleep. It would mean that some device is left in a power-drawing mode. I can't say for sure that Atheros has anything to do with this. Are you confusing it with the other HAL on Linux systems?

      --
      Bruce Perens.
    2. Re:Working sleep mode? by MostAwesomeDude · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Hi, I joined X.org after ATI released docs, and helped add support for an entire line of video cards, including the one I'm using right now to type this.

      Your defeatism is kinda silly, if you stop and consider how much work we've done in the open source world.

      --
      ~ C.
  4. OpenWRT and DD-WRT porting boosted by this? by tecker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if this could be used to help port OpenWRT over to the atheros chipset. Currently the only routers that OpenWRT (and conversely by that DD-WRT) really work well on are the broadcom chipsets. Many routers that use the Atheros chipset have been written off as impossible to port to. Maybe they could be used if this proves any insight to how they operate.

    --
    Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
  5. Re:DVD and Blu-ray by LingNoi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In the UK this stuff is patent free because there are no software patents in England. It depends very much on where you live.

    If Canonical made a UK distribution which included all the patented free software it would also create prior art in case of any changes in UK patent law.

  6. Yippee!! Will KisMAC finally work on MacBooks? by wintermute1974 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I really hope the programmers behind KisMAC are reading this thread.

    We MacBook users are really hoping that we can run injections and other advanced features using our built-in network cards now. Until now, all our packets were trash and we couldn't work out the SSID.

    Sad days they have been, but now we have reason to be optimistic!