=== LinuxKPI 802.11 Wireless Update

Contact: Bjoern A. Zeeb <bz@FreeBSD.org> +
Contact: The FreeBSD wireless mailing list <wireless@FreeBSD.org>

With multiple wireless projects ongoing, this report focuses on the efforts using permissively licensed Linux wireless drivers mostly unmodified on FreeBSD.
The currently supported drivers are man:iwlwifi[4], man:rtw88[4], and man:rtw89[4].

The man:rtw88[4] driver was made to work (associate) again (link:https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=283142[Bugzilla PR#283142]).
In addition, thanks to the massive help debugging and testing by the community, the cause for leaking memory got resolved (link:https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=283903[Bugzilla PR#283903]).

Tunables to selectively control HT and VHT support in man:rtw88[4], and man:rtw89[4] were added.
HW crypto offload was enabled by default for CCMP.
It turns out that a lot of users are still using TKIP.
Work is in on the way to support this and will hopefully land early in Q2.

HT (11n) and VHT (11ac) support are now also compiled in by default for the LinuxKPI based drivers.
The drivers and entire framework changes were merged from main to stable/14 so both branches have the same level of support.

People installing firmware using man:fwget[8] will get HT and VHT automatically enabled for man:iwlwifi[4] 2200 (mostly AX200), AX210, and BE200 chipset generations.
Older man:iwlwifi[4] chipset generations, man:rtw88[4], and man:rtw89[4] will need extra work in LinuxKPI or the driver to provide working support.

It was announced that man:iwlwififw[4] will follow man:rtw88[4], and man:rtw89[4] firmware and be removed from the base system in April 2025 for both main and stable/14 in favor of the ports based solution and man:fwget[8] support (link:https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-stable/2025-March/002763.html[Announcement]).

Sponsor: The FreeBSD Foundation
