Broadcom wifi kernel module

For Developers
1

Hi All,
I'm looking for some quick hints before I dive in and attempt to add and document a new device into OpenWrt.

I have a mostly working base image which I have been able to flash onto a BiPAC 7700N and the first issue I need to solve is the wifi.
According to the logs, the bcm43225 wifi device I have to work with needs to use either the b43 or brcmsmac kernel module.
According to the logs, both are loaded:

bcma: bus0: Found chip with id 43225, rev 0x01 and package 0x0A
b43-phy0: Broadcom 43225 WLAN found (core revision 23)

But only one is required. And they are likely conflicting with each other and resulting in the wifi only producing scans but not making connections.

So I have the following questions, if someone familiar wouldn't mind answering?

  1. I can blacklist either b43 or brcmsmac from loading but which one will provide the least painful experience?
  2. What firmware ships with OpenWrt? All the wifi firmware from kernel.org? None of it? It is image dependent?

From what I read here brcmsmac does not support master mode (AP) which would explain seeing:
daemon.notice netifd: radio0 (948): command failed: Not supported (-122)
in the system log.
I wonder if the lack of AP support still holds true?

The intention is to use the device as a repeater eventually, so I really only need client support but having full functionality is preferable.
Any advice from a dev who is familiar with the way I should tackle the wifi issue would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

2

Replying to my own thread.

I think I found a bug. Because someone else is reporting that their wifi does not work out of the box: The wifi does not work on the first startup

I got it work though.

3

Hi if you got it to work could you pleas let us know how?

4

Hi Tapper!
I am unsure having just spent an hour or two. I wouldn't like to speculate what's causing the issue.
Firstly, the bug I have found is that the wifi doesn't work correctly unless I manually set the MAC address for the wifi interface in /etc/config/wireless

That being said, the wifi config in luci is utterly broken and what appears in luci is not exactly what is being created in /etc/config/wireless

I wish I could help more but there are so many really obvious bugs, I'm not sure where to start until I am a little more familiar with OpenWrt. I've had OpenWrt on a device which no one else has documented on the wiki for about 48hrs. :smile: