The new driver for Broadcom wireless devices is now available for testing. The file is ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.net/patches/BCM4301_for_2.6.22.patch. As the name implies, it is to be applied to the 2.6.22 or 2.6.22.1 source. The ssb driver is included in the patch. To test it, follow these steps:
1. Download the file and patch the source. Unfortunately, the current code for mac80211 in wireless-2.6 and Linus's tree is not functional with this driver. When we solve this problem and you can apply a patch to either of those trees, I'll post that news here. 2. Configure it with 'make xconfig' or 'make menuconfig'. In "Networking/Wireless", select the mac80211 IEEE80211 networking stack. Deselect the other generic IEEE802.11 stack. Under Drivers/Network device support/Wireless LAN", select the BCM4301 driver with debugging support. 3. Build and install the kernel and modules. This version uses V3 firmware, the same as bcm43xx-softmac. Although it is planned that this driver will eventually support only the 802.11b-devices (BCM4301 and BCM4303), it currently supports all 802.11b and 802.11g devices. Performance of the new driver is better, than bcm43xx. The following transfer results using iperf with a server on my LAN are as shown below with the rates given in Mbs with transmitting first and receiving second: Bitrate BCM4311 1 0.83/8.17 2 1.61/10.4 5.5 3.82/12.6 6 4.28/15.8 9 5.93/16.4 11 6.23/13.3 18 10.1/17.8 24 12.3/17.1 36 15.2/17.5 48 17.2/17.2 54 17.9/17.8 As you can see, performance does not drop off at the highest rates. This is the first time I have been able to get a reading at 54 Mbs. I think it might be possible to get this driver into 2.6.23-mm, which would make it possible for it to be merged into 2.6.24. If bcm43xx-mac80211 is ready at that time, this driver will be restricted to 802.11b devices. If not, it will be pushed as a port of bcm43xx. PLease report your results - good or bad. In particular, I'm interested in any warnings and/or oops's. Thanks, Larry _______________________________________________ Bcm43xx-dev mailing list [email protected] https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/bcm43xx-dev
