Re: On brcm80211 maintenance and support

From: Kalle Valo
Date: Wed Oct 11 2023 - 06:32:12 EST


Phil Elwell <phil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> This is just a quick note to say that Raspberry Pi obviously has a
> vested interest in the future of the brcmfmac driver. In our
> downstream tree we use the upstream driver largely unmodified - there
> are a handful of patches that tinker around the edges, the largest of
> which is in the area of firmware location and being phased out - no
> patches from Infineon/Cypress, Synaptics or Broadcom.
>
> We're very much WiFi users as opposed to WiFi developers, but if
> there's something useful we can contribute then please speak up and
> I'll see what we can do.

Is it possible to run upstream vanilla kernels on a Raspberry Pi? For
example at least once a month take latest wireless-next[1], install it
to a Raspberry Pi and run some simple wireless tests. If any regressions
are found report that to linux-wireless. Preferably with a bisect log to
easily find the offending commit.

Testing patches before they are applied would be even more helpful,
especially for the risky ones. We have a hard "no regressions" rule so
earlier we catch the regressions the better.

I also wonder should there be a dedicated brcm80211 specific mailing
list? That way people who want to help could easily follow and discuss
brcm80211 development, and no need to follow linux-wireless. For example
we do that with ath12k driver.

[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/wireless/wireless-next.git/

--
https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/list/

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/documentation/submittingpatches