NOTE: this page is for archival only, see the note at the end of the page.

Existing Linux Wireless drivers

We currently have a fair amount of working drivers that cover most of the available wireless networking cards. However, they don't implement all features and may have some issues, due to various reasons like companies not providing specs. Below is an alphabetically sorted list of drivers and what they currently can and can't do.

Driver

Station

Access point

Ad-hoc

Adv. monitor FootNote(monitor all frames during regular operation)

A/B/G

["en/users/Drivers/adm8211" adm8211 (ADMtek devices)]

yes

no

no

?

B

["en/users/Drivers/bcm43xx" bcm43xx (Broadcom chips)]

yes

yes*

no

yes

B/GFootNote(A devices exist but can currently not be used with this driver, A/B/G devices may work in B/G mode)

[http://intellinuxwireless.org/ Intel ipw2100]

yes

no

yes

no

B

[http://intellinuxwireless.org/ Intel ipw2200]

yes

[http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipw2200-ap yes]

yes

no

B/G

[http://intellinuxwireless.org/ Intel ipw3945]

yes

?

?

?

A/B/G

["en/users/Drivers/p54" p54 (Intersil chips)]

yes

no

no

?

B/G

["en/users/Drivers/rt2x00" rt2x00 (Ralink 2400/2500 PCI, 2500 USB, 61 PCI, 73 USB)] FootNote(please split this if it is different for the various rt2x00 drivers)

yes

?

?

?

?

[http://zd1211.ath.cx/wiki/DriverRewrite zd1211rw (ZyDAS ZD1211/ZD1211B chips)]

yes

no

no

?

B/G

* => wireless-dev development kernel only

This is a static dump of the old wiki, taken after locking it in January 2015. The new wiki is at https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/.
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