the scheduled bcm43xx removal

---------------------------

What:	bcm43xx wireless network driver

When:	2.6.26

Files:	drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx

Why:	This driver's functionality has been replaced by the

	mac80211-based b43 and b43legacy drivers.

Who:	John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>

---------------------------

What:	ieee80211 softmac wireless networking component

When:	2.6.26 (or after removal of bcm43xx and port of zd1211rw to mac80211)

Files:	net/ieee80211/softmac

e.g. With the BCM4318 on the Acer Aspire 5020 series:

ndiswrapper: Light blinks on when transmitting

bcm43xx/b43: Solid light, blinks off when transmitting

b43: Solid light, blinks off when transmitting

Wireless radio control is unconditionally enabled - all Acer laptops that support

acer-wmi come with built-in wireless. However, should you feel so inclined to

			BCM43xx Linux Driver Project

			============================

Introduction

------------

Many of the wireless devices found in modern notebook computers are

based on the wireless chips produced by Broadcom. These devices have

been a problem for Linux users as there is no open-source driver

available. In addition, Broadcom has not released specifications

for the device, and driver availability has been limited to the

binary-only form used in the GPL versions of AP hardware such as the

Linksys WRT54G, and the Windows and OS X drivers.  Before this project

began, the only way to use these devices were to use the Windows or

OS X drivers with either the Linuxant or ndiswrapper modules. There

is a strong penalty if this method is used as loading the binary-only

module "taints" the kernel, and no kernel developer will help diagnose

any kernel problems.

Development

-----------

This driver has been developed using

a clean-room technique that is described at

http://bcm-specs.sipsolutions.net/ReverseEngineeringProcess. For legal

reasons, none of the clean-room crew works on the on the Linux driver,

and none of the Linux developers sees anything but the specifications,

which are the ultimate product of the reverse-engineering group.

Software

--------

Since the release of the 2.6.17 kernel, the bcm43xx driver has been

distributed with the kernel source, and is prebuilt in most, if not

all, distributions.  There is, however, additional software that is

required. The firmware used by the chip is the intellectual property

of Broadcom and they have not given the bcm43xx team redistribution

rights to this firmware.  Since we cannot legally redistribute

the firmware we cannot include it with the driver. Furthermore, it

cannot be placed in the downloadable archives of any distributing

organization; therefore, the user is responsible for obtaining the

firmware and placing it in the appropriate location so that the driver

can find it when initializing.

To help with this process, the bcm43xx developers provide a separate

program named bcm43xx-fwcutter to "cut" the firmware out of a

Windows or OS X driver and write the extracted files to the proper

location. This program is usually provided with the distribution;

however, it may be downloaded from

http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=4547

The firmware is available in two versions. V3 firmware is used with

the in-kernel bcm43xx driver that uses a software MAC layer called

SoftMAC, and will have a microcode revision of 0x127 or smaller. The

V4 firmware is used by an out-of-kernel driver employing a variation of

the Devicescape MAC layer known as d80211. Once bcm43xx-d80211 reaches

a satisfactory level of development, it will replace bcm43xx-softmac

in the kernel as it is much more flexible and powerful.

A source for the latest V3 firmware is

http://downloads.openwrt.org/sources/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o

Once this file is downloaded, the command

'bcm43xx-fwcutter -w <dir> <filename>'

will extract the microcode and write it to directory

<dir>. The correct directory will depend on your distribution;

however, most use '/lib/firmware'. Once this step is completed,

the bcm3xx driver should load when the system is booted. To see

any messages relating to the driver, issue the command 'dmesg |

grep bcm43xx' from a terminal window. If there are any problems,

please send that output to Bcm43xx-dev@lists.berlios.de.

Although the driver has been in-kernel since 2.6.17, the earliest

version is quite limited in its capability. Patches that include

all features of later versions are available for the stable kernel

versions from 2.6.18. These will be needed if you use a BCM4318,

or a PCI Express version (BCM4311 and BCM4312). In addition, if you

have an early BCM4306 and more than 1 GB RAM, your kernel will need

to be patched.	These patches, which are being updated regularly,

are available at ftp://lwfinger.dynalias.org/patches. Look for

combined_2.6.YY.patch. Of course you will need kernel source downloaded

from kernel.org, or the source from your distribution.

If you build your own kernel, please enable CONFIG_BCM43XX_DEBUG

and CONFIG_IEEE80211_SOFTMAC_DEBUG. The log information provided is

essential for solving any problems.

W:	http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43

S:	Maintained

BCM43XX WIRELESS DRIVER (SOFTMAC BASED VERSION)

P:	Larry Finger

M:	Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net

P:	Stefano Brivio

M:	stefano.brivio@polimi.it

L:	linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org

W:	http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/

S:	Obsolete

BEFS FILE SYSTEM

P:	Sergey S. Kostyliov

M:	rathamahata@php4.ru

source "drivers/net/wireless/ath5k/Kconfig"

source "drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/Kconfig"

source "drivers/net/wireless/hostap/Kconfig"

source "drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/Kconfig"

source "drivers/net/wireless/b43/Kconfig"

source "drivers/net/wireless/b43legacy/Kconfig"

source "drivers/net/wireless/zd1211rw/Kconfig"