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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."

6 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. 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.
  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: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.