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Open Firmware Released For Broadcom Wireless
mcgrof writes "Linux developers have announced the release of a reverse-engineered open source firmware for Broadcom 4306 and 4318 wireless hardware, licensed under the GPLv2. 'Although the base firmware is not fully 802.11 compliant, e.g., it does not support RTS/CTS procedure or QoS, we believe that someone could be interested in testing it. The firmware does not require the kernel to be modified and it uses the same shared memory layout and global registers usage of the original stuff from broadcom to ease loading by the b43 driver.' You can go check out and download the firmware at the Italian Universita' Degli Studi Di Brescia Open FirmWare for WiFi networks project page. This is a good example of clean room reverse engineering design where one group worked on specifications while another worked on the the driver and the firmware. Kudos to the specification writers and bcm43xx development team for their hard work."
Does this mean Broadcom can finally stop acting like precious little bitches, resign themselves to the enviable and open-source their officials drivers so we can have complete support?
Why must they insist on holding out? It's obvious that if they don't open source their drivers, someone else will. Might as well supply official drivers in that case.
... no longer needing ndiswrapper, even if it's getting getting pretty easy these days.
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What kind of processor is used?
It does not seem like ARM code what I assumed, no general purpose registers at all.
Seems like some kind of memory only architecture.
Can anyone more knowledgeable chip in? Seems very interesting to play with.
Obviously you can now implement all kinds of things in there. For example you could implement a simple wireless mesh router which would still work when your computer is in standby.
Not so bad when it is a separately bought product but plain obnoxious when it's integrated into some other equipment like a laptop.
So yeah, kudos to the developers.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Nice, how long until we see this in Ubuntu?
When I first read the headline, I thought "Why on earth would anyone want to run Open Firmware on a wireless chipset" - because you know, Open Firmware is actually something else entirely.
This would be really useful if you wanted to develop a protocol for single long distsance point-to-point linke. I seem to remember Intel was developing something for use in developing countries with a special version of a wireless router but this gives you the source so has much more hack value.
What I really need is to be able to pitch over bcm43legacy for a driver which supports Master (AP) mode. It's really pathetic how many cards DON'T do this. I think you can hack 3945abg drivers to do it, but the ONLY reliable host is Atheros. (PC Engines sells Atheros-based Wistron MiniPCI for like $29...)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Does this mean we can use the Broadcom card as a true programmable radio and not be limited to the rigid 802.11* channel regime?
I always thought that is why companies kept their wireless firmware so secret, so that they could use a generally programmable radio ASIC, but the firmware kept things "legal")
(yes, I know there are legalities here, but as long as the transmit power is low...)
I have an old dell laptop, so old in fact it has a separate wireless card the connects in the PCMCIA slot. I've put different flavors of linux on it several different times, but the thing that always makes me go back to putting XP on it is the wireless. Sure it loads up fine using ndiswrapper, and no it isn't tough to do, but for some reasons the settings never stick and only works until the laptop get shut down. The next time it's booted up you have have to go through the whole process again just to get wireless working. I'm hoping by using what these guys have done that the broadcom card will remain setup. If it doesn't I guess I'll throw XP back on it but if it does, Mint Linux for me!!
It takes a big man to cry. It takes a bigger man to laugh at that man. ~ Jack Handy
ahahaha i cant belive it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!from Brescia my city ahahahahahahahahahaa
<sarcasm>
Yeah! Not to mention that they released the source code too! How do they think they're going to monetize something by releasing the source code so their competitors can see it?!?! When will those open source guys ever learn?
Note to open source developers: If you're going to release something, you need to wait until it's completely finished (as EmagGeek said) and not release the source code with it!
</sarcasm>
(score -1: unfamiliar with the concept, but commenting on it authoritatively anyway.)
Congratulations to the developers on getting this working, and a big thank you to all of them for all the hard work that has been put into this. I don't have any of these devices anymore, but I remember what a pain they were to get working back in the day. And, obviously, those are the models in next to every computer with Broadcom WLAN. Thanks again to the devlopers; this will make a lot of people happy.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The firmware is tightly controlled because the company , in this case, Broadcom does not want anyone modifying the firmware. What this does is minimize the risk that a product that include the part will fail FCC inspection (or the equivalent in Europe and elsewhere.) In turn, Broadcom can approach prospective buyers of their part and tell them about this fact in their sales pitch. It is not like there are any 1egal issues involving the Wi-Fi system chip itself as regulatory action applies to a complete product only, say, a neuter or a motherboard.
I dropped another Ubuntu install on a family laptop this weekend. I'm just amazed at how far they've come in the last 5 years. I would have never considered putting Linux on a family PC 5 years ago. The driver support is outstanding, and I could say even better than Windows for the laptops I've put it on. I didn't even have to install wireless drivers on a Dell, two Viao's, and a Macbook Pro. The Sony's and the Mac all worked out of the box, and the Dell (a cheaper model) only required me to install some updates for the OS to offer up a wireless driver that worked.
;)
I've always been confused as to why MS doesn't offer up wireless driver support out of the box like they do for non-wireless cards. I can only assume this is the vendor?
In any case, Kudos to the developers! If it's not the year of the Linux Desktop, it has to be getting pretty damn close
the XO has a Marvell chip which implements a mesh-networking AP, so that the XO can act as a repeater even when the main power is turned off.
AFAIK, the Marvell chip has an on-board MIPS core and 64 kB of memory, so you can run whatever you can fit in 64 kB of MIPS code without CPU intervention.
Two firmwares are available, one that makes the chip act as a normal, softmac wifi chip, and one that implements parts of 802.11s in the chip -- IIRC, forwarding is done in the chip, but routing table management is done by the CPU.
The chip will not continue working when system power is off, but it will forward packets without waking the CPU. This means that the CPU can spend longer periods of time in a power-saving mode (C3, probably).
You can go check out and download the firmware at the Italian Universita' Degli Studi Di Brescia
Woulnd't that make it Fermi-ware?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
... no longer needing ndiswrapper
You're confused. There already are reverse engineered drivers for Broadcom chips, and they are included in the Linux kernel tree, no less (b43 and b43legacy). These drivers were not developed by Broadcom, who provide their own binary driver for 2.4 kernels (wl.o).
This is about the firmware -- the binary blob that is loaded into the chip's embedded CPU, and with which the drivers, whether binary or opensource, need to interact.
I, for one, welcome open source firmware, and am looking forward to using the firmware's idea of link quality in my mesh networking experiments.
Not fully compliant? Is that the linux developer's motto or something? Why can't linux people understand that good enough just isn't good enough, especially when it isn't good enough?
It can be go tiem now plees?
It's a shame that the final product was GPLed. A GPLed driver is compatible with Linux, but couldn't be used in other operating systems such as NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. How about releasing driver under a truly free license, such as the BSD license, which would make it usable by all operating systems? Or, if for some reason the authors won't consent to that, how about releasing the specs from which the driver was implemented?
Seems everyone neglects the popular 4310 used in many otherwise Linux-friendly laptops.