From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.forwardemail.net (smtp.forwardemail.net [121.127.44.73]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 514293793C1 for ; Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:44:30 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=121.127.44.73 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1776253474; cv=none; b=dlYI4f80QDzuXionqSG5zWwKLPE3RpYUZNYj/900/Esqo6BrcSrC7wbTUQeV82WTWFt41RwX14xQdQyagDdplv3tAERGxcq/9Y/POvPJ7zDvodd/3US+Cc0I49XZxavB8IaOMuvqSOkgOXws1rnGcJVn+93MTRKTER7ZcpkiuHI= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1776253474; c=relaxed/simple; bh=RUAMkRMvJIYGpqvgrfry3NMMlM+78pl3rBiEk2MPNJU=; h=Mime-Version:Content-Type:Date:Message-Id:Subject:From:To:Cc: References:In-Reply-To; b=C2qWrh/AkUOVQChj/O81NkUmSu+zBw0DIw5nKEEMzTYrIZSMphT5Wt0ddvU9MD9DzxC1QfK+DuUrbdAplcPdAtjxLD7ZL6DW/1pZk3LqIFEjRJTkR/UyubmlDc8lgkZzenUA5jWrI51XIW9R3DEwdNWqzqlkVECEKDR+9veeByo= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=ubuntu.com; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=fe-bounces.ubuntu.com; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=ubuntu.com header.i=@ubuntu.com header.b=QDN83BKE; arc=none smtp.client-ip=121.127.44.73 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=ubuntu.com Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=fe-bounces.ubuntu.com Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=ubuntu.com header.i=@ubuntu.com header.b="QDN83BKE" DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=ubuntu.com; h=In-Reply-To: References: Cc: To: From: Subject: Message-Id: Date: Content-Type: Content-Transfer-Encoding: Mime-Version; q=dns/txt; s=fe-953a8a3ca9; t=1776253464; bh=RUAMkRMvJIYGpqvgrfry3NMMlM+78pl3rBiEk2MPNJU=; b=QDN83BKE1cWlNEOo2GZbV/L2j51jkFNCYXb1gFegdVS/VmJdi/+wpLwdBYv+/WcsMspS//S6V l425IoylIS48OxxNQLl6O5Qt478H2Pg6o5r5pT6ZXeKTcCh0PjL9wOBohEy4sY22TDMK2I5qcSK ODmt8UTjiHGTU3or1V7/pMFjC+sGfIibrXZQ9pfu+MzJymgFqU0yrQ1ve3NcZrYzUtHOlyws8Zk NXtmF2vc6KXOpE4AmKcxC+K8mgPSEAbUvjrCop6Zq7cbVw4qDekgeWvq+Xu0aP+wmYnpENvPNO5 mE5LbwG4cXmVbnYOa6StLQqfnSpE+7ZH9ZXVyYy0WTCw== X-Forward-Email-ID: 69df7a17289add7dee9f6483 X-Forward-Email-Sender: rfc822; jpeisach@ubuntu.com, smtp.forwardemail.net, 121.127.44.73 X-Forward-Email-Version: 2.7.3 X-Forward-Email-Website: https://forwardemail.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@forwardemail.net X-Report-Abuse: abuse@forwardemail.net X-Report-Abuse-To: abuse@forwardemail.net Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=Flowed Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:44:21 -0400 Message-Id: Subject: Re: Firmware for reverse engineering b43? From: "Joshua Peisach" To: "Jonas Gorski" , "Joshua Peisach" Cc: "Johannes Berg" , , X-Mailer: aerc 0.21.0 References: In-Reply-To: On Tue Apr 14, 2026 at 8:24 AM EDT, Jonas Gorski wrote: > On Tue, Apr 14, 2026 at 1:31=E2=80=AFPM Joshua Peisach wrote: >> >> On Tue Apr 14, 2026 at 5:14 AM EDT, Johannes Berg wrote: >> > I think there's no easy answer - what are you even trying to achieve? >> > Does b43 not work sufficiently well? Do you even know if some specific >> > calibration have a tendency to go out of whack? Is there later firmwar= e >> > that has some advantage (given how little actually happens in firmware >> > in these devices, I'd be surprised by that) but isn't compatible with >> > the driver now, and you want to change that? >> > >> > I'd be tempted to say that if there's no problem there don't try to fi= x >> > anything, the hardware is ancient anyway, likely has few users, and >> > those users would probably be fine with just leaving it? >> > >> > johannes >> >> The BCM4321 (nphy) doesn't connect to my 5G network, so I figured that >> by filling in TODOs and FIXME's, I could eventually get something >> working. >> >> Other than that, I was thinking of making improvements for the sake of >> improving the driver. > > The initial version of the brcm80211 softmac driver [1] should also > help in making sense of some of the code (flag names etc). While it > officially only supports BCM43224 and newer on BCMA, it still had > remnants of support for older N-PHY revisions, so may help in finding > differences or explaining what code does. > > I once considered trying to clean up b43 based on brcmsmac, but never > got around to it. It does appear to be similar - even the current brcm80211. So much so that I sometimes need to think about whether b43 is actually a duplicated driver. Since b43 is in an orphan state, I thought it would be a great place to start for kernel development. 5G doesn't work on that iMac, some of the PHYs, like the AC PHYs appear to be incomplete - it felt reasonable. Because I'm one of those "there's always room for improvement people", I was going to try to improve the driver, filling out TODOs, fixing hardcoded register numbers, etc. But if it's best left alone.. then I guess we can do that. That is, assuming b43 is actually supposed to be a separate driver, because if brcmsmac basically has the same code, then maybe we should focus to centralizing everything? But then there's b43legacy.. hm... -Josh > > Best regards, > Jonas > > [1] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/a9533e7ea3c410fed2f4cd8b3e1e21= 3e48529b75/drivers/staging/brcm80211