December 3, 2009

2.6.32 has been released with 1020 patches touching wireless code.

Among the changes a few worth noting:

• lots of wl1251 fixes, support for the 1271 chip
• orinoco begins conversion to cfg80211
• b43 LP PHY support (BCM4312 devices)
• almost all mac80211 callbacks can now sleep (configure_filter was made able to)
• rndis_wlan uses cfg80211
• rtl8187 got rfkill switch support
• ath9k gets AR9287 support and a large number of enhancements
• wireless is now network namespace aware
• nl80211 testmode command for factory testing/calibration
• nl80211 reports BSS status
• cfg80211 gains the ability to connect to APs
• cfg80211 finally verifies that changing channel won't interfere with operation
• cfg80211 drivers now can also parse country IEs
• mac80211 no longer depends on wireless extensions
• mac80211 scanning is much improved
• mac80211 has a tracer now for driver interaction
• mac80211 no longer creates the master netdev wmaster0
• mac80211 dynamic power save default set to 100ms
• mac80211 Mesh enhancements and config IE updated to match 802.11s draft 3.02
• improvements and fixes for mac80211 resume
• improvements to mac80211's connection loss detection

Quite a number of changes, and not small changes either – for example the ability for cfg80211 to emulate wireless extensions fully now or the LP PHY support in b43.

September 9, 2009

With again almost 600 patches related to wireless, the new 2.6.31 kernel comes with many wireless changes:

• iwlwifi continues unification between 3945 and AGN hardware

• the often-discussed rfkill rewrite, along with rfkill integration into cfg80211

• rndis_wlan starts using cfg80211 as the first full-MAC driver

• iwlwifi support for 3x3 802.11n hardware
• cfg80211 now handles connecting to an ad-hoc network (including wext support)
• initial support for rt2800usb, but still experimental
• a new wl12xx driver for the TI 1251 B/G chip
• ath5k has enabled AP mode
• the hwsim driver can now separate its virtual radios into groups to allow testing mesh topologies
• there's a new driver for new Intel integrated full-MAC hardware, also using cfg80211

June 9, 2009

This time around for the 2.6.30 kernel release more than 900 patches related to wireless went into the next version of Linux. Besides lots of internal cleanups, notable new features are:

• rt2x00 now supports powersave (use iwconfig wlan0 power timeout 500ms to enable)

• rt2x00 now supports mesh (point/portal) and WDS operation
• ath9k now supports mesh point operation
• mac80211 IBSS can be fixed to channel/BSSID for those who can't use 802.11s mesh but need layer 3 mesh
• mac80211 now re-aligns frames where necessary to avoid unaligned IP payload for platforms that are not capable of processing such frames
• mac80211 can support 802.11w (protected management frames), however the only driver currently supporting it is ath9k (other drivers just need testing)
• mac80211 now deconfigures/reconfigures the device during suspend/resume
• iwlwifi now supports 1000/6000 hw series

• cfg80211/nl80211 support scanning (iw dev wlan0 scan)

• mac80211 now supports aggregation with iwlwifi again (broken since 2.6.27)

For further wireless related details you can check the 2.6.30 wireless log.

March 23, 2009

Linux 2.6.29 is released. With almost 600 commits, wireless keeps moving. New features:

• We now support access point functionality with selected drivers

• minstrel is the default rate control algorithm

• dynamic powersave support for some drivers

• HT capabilities of the local hardware are now visible in iw

• mesh parameters can now be configured

And a number of fixes, notably:

• short slot handling is now working properly
• HT/11n code revamped
• new, much cleaner, rate control API
• when auth/assoc times out, notify userspace to allow it to react faster

As always, a large number of driver changes were made too.

December 23, 2008

The 2.6.28 kernel is released. About 400 patches related to wireless have been merged and once again this release brings a slew of new wireless features to the kernel:

• regulatory support – the kernel will now attempt to obey local wireless spectrum regulations

• libertas_tf – a thin firmware driver for the XO-1's wireless

• ath5k gains mesh networking

• the full-mac orinoco driver gains WPA support

• p54 gains 5 GHz support

• mac80211 got mesh portal functionality (bridging a mesh mode interface)

• the minstrel rate control algorithm was added along with rate control API improvements

• nl80211 userspace API improvements for various things

As usual, some drivers and mac80211 received cleanups and API changes:

• Some mac80211 driver operations are no longer required to be atomic which makes drivers simpler
• mac80211 code was restructured to be easier to read
• more station information is shared with the driver
• the rate control API was rewritten and made available to outside mac80211 (due to be updated again in 2.6.29 for better HT control etc.)