README 2.6 KB

123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113
  1. This is the firmware for the Qualcomm Atheros AR7010 and AR9271 USB
  2. 802.11n NICs.
  3. What is this exactly?
  4. ---------------------
  5. This is the firmware which resides in RAM on the AR7010/AR9271 NICs.
  6. It is used by ath9k (Linux) and athn (OpenBSD) to provide wireless
  7. services.
  8. What licence is this covered by?
  9. --------------------------------
  10. The Qualcomm Atheros owned code is under the ClearBSD licence.
  11. The NOTICES.TXT file contains copyright notices for software which
  12. this firmware release leverages.
  13. There is some code that is based off of work done under contract
  14. but is owned by Qualcomm Atheros; the original copyright statements
  15. from that work are in NOTICES.TXT.
  16. The Tensilica code (xtos/xtensa) is distributed with permission from
  17. Tensilica, Inc., under the MIT licence.
  18. There are three ECOS source files distributed under the terms of
  19. the GPLv2, with a caveat that linking or using the source files does
  20. not bring the rest of the binary under the GPLv2. Please read the
  21. ECOS caveats in more detail.
  22. Ok, what are those NICs?
  23. ------------------------
  24. The AR7010 is a USB/PCIe SoC with onboard RAM, ROM and flash.
  25. It comes with an external wireless chip connected via PCIe - typically
  26. an AR9280 or AR9287.
  27. The AR9271 is a USB/Wifi SoC with onboad RAM, ROM, flash and the
  28. actual wireless chip. The wireless core is an off-shoot of the AR9285.
  29. It is a single-chip solution.
  30. How do I build it?
  31. ------------------
  32. You're in for a treat.
  33. * Install the cmake build tool (http://www.cmake.org/).
  34. Major distributions have packages for this.
  35. * For FreeBSD - install gmake and wget.
  36. * You first have to build the toolchain.
  37. * Linux:
  38. $ make toolchain
  39. * FreeBSD:
  40. $ gmake toolchain
  41. (Yes, I made this work on FreeBSD as well.)
  42. * Next, build the firmware.
  43. * Linux:
  44. $ make -C target_firmware
  45. * FreeBSD:
  46. $ gmake -C target_firmware
  47. You will end up with two .fw files - one for the AR7010 and one for
  48. the AR9271 in the target_firmware directory.
  49. You can clean the firmware build (when you wish to force a rebuild)
  50. by doing:
  51. * Linux:
  52. $ make -C target_firmware clean
  53. * FreeBSD:
  54. $ gmake -C target_firmware clean
  55. Then what?
  56. ----------
  57. You need to then copy this into the relevant location for your operating
  58. system. Yes, this means you need a driver. No, there's no FreeBSD
  59. driver yet for this particular chipset, sorry.
  60. Where do I file bugs?
  61. ---------------------
  62. Please file bugs in github - http://github.com/qca/open-ath9k-htc-firmware/issues .
  63. Mailing lists?
  64. --------------
  65. Here you go:
  66. http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/ath9k_htc_fw
  67. And
  68. ath9k_htc_fw@lists.infradead.org