Re: brcmfmac (USB) driver for Linksys AE1200 donle in Ubuntu 12.04

["Arend van Spriel" <arend@broadcom.com>]

On 07/30/2012 05:02 PM, Paul Hackett wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I'm writing to you from Ireland and taking you up on your kind offer to
> "feel free to contact the developers listed below" in this
> site<http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/brcm80211?highlight=%28broadcom%29%7C%2843235%29>
> .

I will try to be kind in my reply as well ;-)

> I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 (kernel 3.2.0-23-generic-pae) on a Dell E520 (CPU
> C2D 1,86 GHz)
> 
> I recently bought a Linksys AE1200 wifi dongle (Broadcom 43235 chipset) for
> use on another machine (which I'll explain shortly).
> 
> In Ubuntu, the brcmfmac.ko driver is already present in
> 
> /lib/modules/3.2.0-23-generic-pae/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/brcm80211/brcmfmac/brcmfmac.ko
> 

For the 3.2 kernel the brcmfmac only supported SDIO devices. USB support
was added in 3.4 kernel. However, the Linksys AE1200 needs a different
driver model that is not supported. So the only option for x86 is using
ndiswrapper.

> 
> Two questions:
> 
> 1. Should I have been able to get the brcmfmac driver working in Ubuntu
> 12.04 or is it still in development? If yes, what am I missing?

So the answer is no for the two reasons above. The brcmfmac support
BCM43235 only for chip revision 3 and higher. The Linksys AE1200 has an
older revision that requires a driver model that is not supported.

> 2. Are we likely to soon see an ARM version of a brcmfmac driver for the
> Raspberry Pi with which I can running my RPi wirelessly using the Linksys
> dongle?

The brcmfmac driver is already working for ARM platforms. We have both
SDIO and USB running on Pandaboard platform.

> 
> Thank you for reading this.
> I hope you may have some time to respond.
> 
> Very many thanks and best wishes
> 
> Paul

Sorry my response may be disappointing.

Gr. AvS