Release of Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).

In the meantime users should be able to use this driver and patches
are welcomed to add newer wireless extension support so users on newer
kernels can get their devices working. The focus should be upstream
though :)

Anyway, some more details.

Supported hardware:

Atheros 802.11n hardware: UB81, UB82, UB83

Requirements:

Kernel 2.4 - 2.6.24

Get the driver:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mcgrof/otus.git

Features supported:

* IEEE standard compliance
* IEEE 802.11a/b/g
* IEEE 802.11h, 802.11d
* IEEE 80211i
* IEEE Draft 2.0 802.11n
* Ad Hoc
join (2.4GHz, 5GHz if SKU allows), create (2.4GHz , 5GHz if SKU allows)
Adhoc security: WEP
* Security
Authentication: WPA/WPA2 (Personal / Enterprise),
802.1x Encryption: none, AES, TKIP, WEP40, WEP104

wpa_supplicant otus driver:

This driver requires its own supplicant driver for wpa_supplicant
0.4.8. For your convenience you can find the tarball here:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/mcgrof/otus/wpa_supplicant-0.4.8_otus.tar.bz2
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majo...@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

[Greg KH]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 07:04:17PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
> however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
> Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
> with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
> for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).

Yeah!

I'll grab this and put it in drivers/staging/ so it gets some users and
more developers to help out with it.

thanks for doing this.

greg k-h

[Florian Fainelli]

Hi Luis,

Le Wednesday 22 October 2008 04:04:17 Luis R. Rodriguez, vous avez écrit :
> We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
> however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
> Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
> with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
> for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).

This is great news ! Any plans on supporting older sticks as well, like
AR5005UG/X based sticks ?

[Michael Renzmann]

Hi all.

Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
> however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
> Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
> with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
> for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).

We have set up a mailing list for the new driver:
otus-...@lists.madwifi-project.org.

No subscription required. However, the first post from unsubscribed users
will be held back for moderation (which usually takes 24 to 48h) to
protect the list from spam. The delay can be avoided by subscribing [1].

Please contact me if anything goes wrong with the list.

Bye, Mike

[1] https://lists.madwifi-project.org/mailman/listinfo/otus-devel

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 1:28 AM, Florian Fainelli <flo...@openwrt.org> wrote:
> Hi Luis,
>

> Le Wednesday 22 October 2008 04:04:17 Luis R. Rodriguez, vous avez écrit :

>> We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
>> however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
>> Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
>> with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
>> for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).
>
> This is great news ! Any plans on supporting older sticks as well, like
> AR5005UG/X based sticks ?

Yeah, we've already provided documentation to a few select developers.

Luis
èº{.nÇ+‰·Ÿ®‰­†+%ŠËlzwm…éb 맲æìr¸›zX§» ®w¥Š{ayº ʇڙë,j ­¢f£¢·hš‹àz¹ ®w¥¢¸¢·¦j:+v‰¨ŠwèjØm¶Ÿÿ¾ «‘êçzZ+ƒùšŽŠÝ¢j" ú!¶iO•æ¬z·švØ^ ¶ m§ÿðà nÆŠàþY&—

[Greg KH]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:50:45PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 07:04:17PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
> > however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
> > Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
> > with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
> > for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).
>
> Yeah!
>
> I'll grab this and put it in drivers/staging/ so it gets some users and
> more developers to help out with it.

Ok, it seems to need some basic work to merely build properly on
"modern" kernel versions.

So, how should we do this if I want to move it into staging? Can I just
take a snapshot of what you have in this repo, move it in-kernel, fix
the build errors and apply that patch (as your contribution of course)?

Then future development can go off of the in-kernel version? Or do you
plan to keep this git tree active somehow?

thanks,

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 11:26:55PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:50:45PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 07:04:17PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > > We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
> > > however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
> > > Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
> > > with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
> > > for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).
> >
> > Yeah!
> >
> > I'll grab this and put it in drivers/staging/ so it gets some users and
> > more developers to help out with it.
>
> Ok, it seems to need some basic work to merely build properly on
> "modern" kernel versions.

Yeah, it works up to 2.6.24.

> So, how should we do this if I want to move it into staging? Can I just
> take a snapshot of what you have in this repo, move it in-kernel, fix
> the build errors and apply that patch (as your contribution of course)?

That's the thing it needs Wireless Extension support for >= 2.6.24 so
that needs to be done. I can try to do it but first comes ath9k, hence
why we released it to engage with the community on adding that and to
eventually push it upstream.

> Then future development can go off of the in-kernel version? Or do you
> plan to keep this git tree active somehow?

Yeah so the purpose of the git tree is to collect patches to allow users
to use it with >= 2.6.24, all other focus should be on an in-kernel
driver.

Luis

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 7:04 PM, Luis R. Rodriguez
<lrodr...@atheros.com> wrote:
> We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
> however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
> Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
> with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
> for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).
>
> In the meantime users should be able to use this driver and patches
> are welcomed to add newer wireless extension support so users on newer
> kernels can get their devices working. The focus should be upstream
> though :)

So for those of you who want to know which devices to buy

Dlink
* DWA-160A1

Netgear
* WNDA3100
* WN111v2

TP-Link
* TL-WN821N

We now have on the wiki for the driver too, to help followup progress
on development for this driver.

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/otus

Luis

[Michael Renzmann]

Hi.

Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> So for those of you who want to know which devices to buy

What about the Unex DNUA-81 [1]? According to the datasheet it is using UB82.

Bye, Mike

[1] http://www.unex.com.tw/product/dnua-81

[Joerg Albert]

On 10/24/2008 01:37 AM, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

> So for those of you who want to know which devices to buy

I'd guess the

* AVM FRITZ!WLAN N USB Stick (USB ID 0x57c, 0x8401)

should be in this list, too.

I don't own one (yet), but the Windows driver contains:
$ strings -t x fwlanusbn_wxp.sys
..
4de20 Atheros OTUS Wireless Network Adapter
..

Could some owner please confirm the chipset of this stick?

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:11 AM, Luis R. Rodriguez
<lrodr...@atheros.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 11:26:55PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:50:45PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
>> > On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 07:04:17PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>> > > We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
>> > > however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
>> > > Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
>> > > with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
>> > > for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).
>> >
>> > Yeah!
>> >
>> > I'll grab this and put it in drivers/staging/ so it gets some users and
>> > more developers to help out with it.
>>
>> Ok, it seems to need some basic work to merely build properly on
>> "modern" kernel versions.
>
> Yeah, it works up to 2.6.24.

This is now fixed on the master branch, also the branch "for-upstream"
does a lot of cleanup I thought you may like before stuffing it into
staging like removing all KERNEL_VERSION checks, all wireless
extensions checks, some compile warnings, removal of compat, dos2unix,
use utf-8, etc. Unfortunately this still requires a specific version
of wpa_supplicant but it seems it works. Not sure what bars you have
for staging at this point.

Will you take this in, and expect patches for fixing it to use
standard wext and also report standard wireless statistic (yeap, this
is not there yet either).

Joey is one user which reported the driver working now with the
compile fixes for newer kernels for 2.6.28-rc2 using the specific
version of wpa_supplicant for it.

Joey can you test the for-upstream branch on otus git?

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 04:35:11PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:11 AM, Luis R. Rodriguez
> <lrodr...@atheros.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 11:26:55PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> >> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:50:45PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> >> > On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 07:04:17PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> >> > > We would like to see our Atheros 802.11n USB Linux driver upstream
> >> > > however we need help with this so we are releasing our Atheros 11n USB
> >> > > Otus Linux driver under the ISC to the community. The goal is to work
> >> > > with the community to help move this forward upstream. We are hoping
> >> > > for community help and leadership on this (*cough*).
> >> >
> >> > Yeah!
> >> >
> >> > I'll grab this and put it in drivers/staging/ so it gets some users and
> >> > more developers to help out with it.
> >>
> >> Ok, it seems to need some basic work to merely build properly on
> >> "modern" kernel versions.
> >
> > Yeah, it works up to 2.6.24.
>
> This is now fixed on the master branch, also the branch "for-upstream"
> does a lot of cleanup I thought you may like before stuffing it into
> staging like removing all KERNEL_VERSION checks, all wireless
> extensions checks, some compile warnings, removal of compat, dos2unix,
> use utf-8, etc. Unfortunately this still requires a specific version
> of wpa_supplicant but it seems it works. Not sure what bars you have
> for staging at this point.

Pretty much the only "bar" is "it compiles" :)

> Will you take this in, and expect patches for fixing it to use
> standard wext and also report standard wireless statistic (yeap, this
> is not there yet either).

Yes, I can do that.

> Joey is one user which reported the driver working now with the
> compile fixes for newer kernels for 2.6.28-rc2 using the specific
> version of wpa_supplicant for it.
>
> Joey can you test the for-upstream branch on otus git?

If someone can tell me what device this is for, I can try to go buy it
so that I can verify changes I make don't drasticly break things.

I'll go try to get this tree into a buildable state and put it into
staging tonight.

thanks,

greg k-h

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

Excellent, if no one send patches I guess I will.

> > Joey is one user which reported the driver working now with the
> > compile fixes for newer kernels for 2.6.28-rc2 using the specific
> > version of wpa_supplicant for it.
> >
> > Joey can you test the for-upstream branch on otus git?
>
> If someone can tell me what device this is for, I can try to go buy it
> so that I can verify changes I make don't drasticly break things.

So we have a page for this now:

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/otus

Init you can find a list of devices. Let me just paste what we have
there now:

Dlink

* DWA-160A1

Netgear

* WNDA3100
* WN111v2

TP-Link

* TL-WN821N

AVM

* FRITZ!WLAN N USB Stick (USB ID 0x57c, 0x8401)

> I'll go try to get this tree into a buildable state and put it into
> staging tonight.

Thanks! BTW if you add a kconfig option for it please point users with
this info:

This driver requires its own supplicant driver for
wpa_supplicant 0.4.8. For your convenience you can find
the tarball here:

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/mcgrof/otus/wpa_supplicant-0.4.8_otus.tar.bz2

Before compiling wpa_supplicant, ensure your .config has atleast the
following

CONFIG_WIRELESS_EXTENSION=y
CONFIG_EAP_WSC=y
CONFIG_WSC_IE=y
CONFIG_DRIVER_WEXT=y
CONFIG_DRIVER_OTUS=y

After a successful compile, you can use the device with wpa_supplicant
as follows:

wpa_supplicant -Dotus -i <atheros device from ifconfig> -c /path/to/wpa_supplicant.conf -d

Luis

[Joey Krane]

I've tested the TL-WN821N (it's the cheapest N USB I think) with a
generic 802.11g router (WPA enabled) on 2.6.24.7, 2.6.27.4 and
2.6.28-rc2.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704032

I'll test the for-upstream branch soon.

Joey

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 05:55:53PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>
> Excellent, if no one send patches I guess I will.

Ok, I've now added it to the staging tree and will forward it on to
Linus. After it gets there you can probably drop the git tree.

> So we have a page for this now:
>
> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/otus

You might want to link to this off of the "main" drivers page as well.

> Init you can find a list of devices. Let me just paste what we have
> there now:
>
> Dlink
>
> * DWA-160A1
>
> Netgear
>
> * WNDA3100
> * WN111v2
>
> TP-Link
>
> * TL-WN821N
>
> AVM
>
> * FRITZ!WLAN N USB Stick (USB ID 0x57c, 0x8401)

Cool, I'll go poke around the store and see if I can find one of these.

> > I'll go try to get this tree into a buildable state and put it into
> > staging tonight.
>
> Thanks! BTW if you add a kconfig option for it please point users with
> this info:

Oops, forgot this, I'll go add it.

thanks,

greg k-h

[Joerg Albert]

On 10/28/2008 12:35 AM, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

> This is now fixed on the master branch, also the branch "for-upstream"
> does a lot of cleanup I thought you may like before stuffing it into
> staging like removing all KERNEL_VERSION checks, all wireless
> extensions checks, some compile warnings, removal of compat, dos2unix,
> use utf-8, etc. Unfortunately this still requires a specific version
> of wpa_supplicant but it seems it works. Not sure what bars you have
> for staging at this point.

I was a bit disappointed to find binary-only firmware inside the
driver (HalPlus/OTUS_FB50/{hpfwbu,hpfwuinit}.c which is downloaded
into the device during startup (initially thought this to be a
complete OpenSource driver :-(

Unless the attitude towards binary chunks inside the Linux kernel
have changed, I guess these should be moved into userspace using the
firmware_class driver to access it.

/Joerg

[Joerg Albert]

On 10/28/2008 01:55 AM, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

> AVM
>
> * FRITZ!WLAN N USB Stick (USB ID 0x57c, 0x8401)

This one still has problems (download of binary firmware fails) with
the Linux driver (see the other thread in the otus-devel ml).

[Greg KH]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 02:24:02PM +0100, Joerg Albert wrote:
> On 10/28/2008 12:35 AM, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>
>> This is now fixed on the master branch, also the branch "for-upstream"
>> does a lot of cleanup I thought you may like before stuffing it into
>> staging like removing all KERNEL_VERSION checks, all wireless
>> extensions checks, some compile warnings, removal of compat, dos2unix,
>> use utf-8, etc. Unfortunately this still requires a specific version
>> of wpa_supplicant but it seems it works. Not sure what bars you have
>> for staging at this point.
>
> I was a bit disappointed to find binary-only firmware inside the driver
> (HalPlus/OTUS_FB50/{hpfwbu,hpfwuinit}.c which is downloaded into the device
> during startup (initially thought this to be a complete OpenSource driver
> :-(

Binary firmware for a device does make the driver still "open source"
except for how some people intrepret it.

It is legal from a kernel standpoint though, and so it is fine to add to
the kernel as-is.

> Unless the attitude towards binary chunks inside the Linux kernel have
> changed, I guess these should be moved into userspace using the
> firmware_class driver to access it.

Yes they should, patches gladly accepted :)

thanks,

greg k-h