Ath10k firmware changes for 19.07

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Is there a list of differences between the firmware used for the ath10k hardware on the 18.06 and 19.07 release?

https://openwrt.org/releases/19.07/changelog-19.07.0#wirelessath10k_ct_24_changes is overwhelming and it isn't clear if https://www.candelatech.com/downloads/ath10k-10-4/ath10k_release_notes_5.txt or http://www.candelatech.com/downloads/ath10k_release_notes.txt is more related to the up coming release.

2

It's a list of 24 changes, what's unclear and overwhelming about it?

I'm afraid this is more overwhelming; but here's a more comprehensive list from the Git:

3

See also https://www.candelatech.com/ath10k-10.1.php

Note that earlier OpenWrt releases used the "upstream" ath10k drivers, which are different than the -CT drivers.

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4

If you search the main for for ath10k you get a lot of
ath10k-firmware: Update QCA988X firmware to the latest version
ath10k: update QCA4019 firmware
ath10k-firmware: update Candela Tech firmware images

That last line is sometimes repeated three times in a row! It's not clear what changes are in that update or even which version is being shipped now in order to look it up elsewhere.

5

OpenWrt is using the 10.1 firmware then? Not the 10.4 ath10k-ct?

6 
commit 61b5b4971e
Author: John Crispin <redacted>
Date:   Wed Sep 5 14:51:44 2018 +0200

    mac80211: make ath10k-ct the default ath10k
    
    We select ath10k-ct by default, but it is still possible to build
    the upstream version.

commit f96af28272
Author: Koen Vandeputte <redacted>
Date:   Tue Nov 5 12:16:58 2019 +0100

    ath10k-firmware: update Candela Tech firmware images
    
    The release notes since last time for wave-1:
    
      *  October 5,  2019:  Fix too-short msg caused by invalid use of PayloadLen in receive path.
                            This appears to resolve the issue of getting (and ignoring) too-short commands
                            when we detect loss of CE interrupts and go into polling mode.
    
      *  October 12, 2019:  Fix regression in IBSS mode that caused SWBA overrun issues.  Related to
                            regression added during the ct-station logic, specifically TSF allocation.
                            Thanks for Ahmed Zaki @ Mage-Networks for helping to diagnose and test.
    
      *  October 15, 2019:  Only send beacon tx completion events if we can detect CT driver is being
                            used (based on CT_STATS_OK flag being set).  This should help CT firmware work
                            better on stock driver.
    
    The release notes since last time for wave-2:
    
      *  October 15, 2019:  Only send beacon tx completion events if we can detect CT driver is being
                            used (based on ATH10k_USE_TXCOMPL_TXRATE2 | ATH10k_USE_TXCOMPL_TXRATE1 flags being set).
                            This should help CT firmware work better on stock driver.
    
      *  October 31, 2019:  Compile out peer-ratecode-list-event.  ath10k driver ignores the event.
    
      *  November 1, 2019:  Fix rate-ctrl related crash when nss and other things were changed while
                            station stays associated.  See bug: https://github.com/greearb/ath10k-ct/issues/96
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7

You should select the branch you're interested in, but the "answers" are in

https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/blob/master/package/firmware/ath10k-firmware/Makefile

You can check the manifest on the downloads page, for example, https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/19.07.0-rc1/targets/ath79/generic/openwrt-19.07.0-rc1-ath79-generic.manifest

On a running device, you can check with (from an older build)

opkg list-installed | grep ath10k
ath10k-firmware-qca4019-ct-htt - 2019-06-28-7651f5bb-1
ath10k-firmware-qca9888-ct-htt - 2019-06-28-7651f5bb-1
kmod-ath10k-ct - 4.19.72+2019-09-09-5e8cd86f-1
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