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Date:      Thu, 06 Feb 2020 19:13:17 -0500
From:      "Farhan Khan" <farhan@farhan.codes>
To:        "Austin Shafer via freebsd-wireless" <freebsd-wireless@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD Wifi support for 802.11n Atheros AR9271 chip
Message-ID:  <e264cd87-1181-432a-ba1a-df86954f2d86@www.fastmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <cmu-lmtpd-1061974-1580707312-4@sloti35d1t04>
References:  <yu16VrgmYPGiOXPKAb8KipNUQYMNDbp3nLiP2YqSKn32oEOn4GEdGylulMKKZDBiIienY9G8k6d2dSdJDvak-iOfsUKQMf1bojvjel9mreg=@protonmail.com> <cmu-lmtpd-1061974-1580707312-4@sloti35d1t04>

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I apologize for the late reply.

I sort of got this started a bit ago, but have otherwise been occupied since. However, this is something I am interested in pursuing. After a few discussions in #freebsd-wifi on EFnet and reading the athn code on NetBSD/OpenBSD, I have a few thoughts.

The listed devices have four interfaces, Data Tx, Data Rx, Interrupt Rx and Interrupt Tx, and share the same read/write code, so the basics are similar enough. There are some shared interfaces between FreeBSD's ath and athn, so it might be worth creating a generic ath_usb driver that loads a HAL for device-specific interfaces.

My approach was to start with ath_usb, then try to isolate from athn could be in separates HAL per device. I would be interested in restarting this in the future. Last I recall, my code was kernel panicking and I could not figure out why - then $LIFE got in the way.
Is anyone else working on this?

Questions:
A. Is this the right approach? Please offer guidance
B. For those more experienced in the hardware aspects, do the terms WMI CMD ring a bell? I am getting this from a function titled "athn_usb_wmi_xcmd", which is called by the read() function.

Thanks

On Mon, Feb 3, 2020, at 12:21 AM, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> > Dear FreeBSD Developer,
> 
> > I have been following your to-do list through the site:
> 
> > https://wiki.freebsd.org/AdrianChadd and https://wiki.freebsd.org/WiFi/80211ac
> 
> > And I envisioned that I specialize in Qualcomm Atheros, so I would like
> > to expect to port the AR9271 802.11n 150Mpbs 2GHz 1x1: 1 Wireless USB 2.0 chipset from this
> > list https://man.openbsd.org/athn.4 that already exists on openBSD for freeBSD?
> 
> > Chipset Spectrum TxR:S Bus
> > AR5008-2NG (AR5416+AR2122) 2GHz 2x2:2 PCI/CardBus
> > AR5008-3NG (AR5416+AR2133) 2GHz 3x3:2 PCI/CardBus
> > AR5008-2NX (AR5416+AR5122) 2GHz/5GHz 2x2:2 PCI/CardBus
> > AR5008-3NX (AR5416+AR5133) 2GHz/5GHz 3x3:2 PCI/CardBus
> > AR5008E-2NG (AR5418+AR2122) 2GHz 2x2:2 PCIe
> > AR5008E-3NG (AR5418+AR2133) 2GHz 3x3:2 PCIe
> > AR5008E-2NX (AR5418+AR5122) 2GHz/5GHz 2x2:2 PCIe
> > AR5008E-3NX (AR5418+AR5133) 2GHz/5GHz 3x3:2 PCIe
> > AR9001-2NG (AR9160+AR9103) 2GHz 2x2:2 PCI
> > AR9001-3NG (AR9160+AR9103) 2GHz 3x3:2 PCI
> > AR9001-3NX2 (AR9160+AR9106) 2GHz/5GHz 3x3:2 PCI
> > AR9220 2GHz/5GHz 2x2:2 PCI
> > AR9223 2GHz 2x2:2 PCI
> > AR9280 2GHz/5GHz 2x2:2 PCIe
> > AR9280+AR7010 2GHz/5GHz 2x2:2 USB 2.0
> > AR9281 2GHz 1x2:2 PCIe
> > AR9285 2GHz 1x1:1 PCIe
> > AR9271 2GHz 1x1:1 USB 2.0
> > AR2427 2GHz 1x1:1 PCIe
> > AR9227 2GHz 2x2:2 PCI
> > AR9287 2GHz 2x2:2 PCIe
> > AR9287+AR7010 2GHz 2x2:2 USB 2.0
> 
> > I'm waiting for a return.
> > Best regards.
> > Cads
> > Sent from [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com), Swiss-based encrypted email.
> 
> I have a wireless Atheros AR9271 chip , USB or acts like USB, on an MSI MPOWER motherboard dating to May 2013.
> 
> FreeBSD has no driver for this; I was able to use Hiro H50191 USB wireless adapter, driver rsu, though it sometimes drops the connection especially when I have it running for a long time.
> 
> Currently on NetBSD, there is an athn driver, but booting hangs unless I disable athn.
> 
> Previously on NetBSD, most of the time it would fail to load the firmware, but I have had some times where I was actually able to get an internet connection with this wireless adapter.
> 
> Last experience I have with OpenBSD is 5.4, from liveusb-openbsd.sourceforge.net, now far outdated. This OpenBSD had both rsu and athn drivers, but neither one could load the firmware.
> 
> You could try to port from either NetBSD or OpenBSD.
> 
> On NetBSD I use re driver for Ethernet Realtek 811E/8168.
> 
> Tom
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> 

--
Farhan Khan
PGP Fingerprint: 1312 89CE 663E 1EB2 179C 1C83 C41D 2281 F8DA C0DE




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