Pre-compiled updated mwlwifi drivers for stable releases

For Developers
228

The exact steps you should follow to get package with correct kernel dependency:

  1. git clone https://git.lede-project.org/source.git lede
  2. cd lede
  3. git checkout v17.01.4
  4. ./scripts/feeds update -a
  5. ./scripts/feeds install -a
  6. get correct config.seed, for 17.01.4 you should use https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/17.01.4/targets/mvebu/generic/config.seed , save it in lede directory
  7. mv config.seed .config
  8. make defconfig
  9. apply whatever changes you want to mwlwifi packages
  10. make toolchain/compile # build mwlwifi ipkg
    make target/linux/compile
    make package/kernel/mwlwifi/compile
    == or ==
    make # full build

The crucial here is getting all feeds (you've done that before) and using correct config.seed for particular release.

Hope it'll help.

229

That is exactly how I build my packages.

230

On the other hand, if you just edit the "packages/kernel/mwlwifi/Makefile" file in your local folder, you can just change the commit ID and the version name, so your build will contain the updated drivers.

231

New release available:

First tests are good.

1 Like
232

Thanks
I didn't understand p.9 and made
9. make menuconfig, save .config
10. make (got correct kernel version - coooool)
11. install fw to router
11. install mwlwifi
all are working fine:)

About p.9:
How can I use Eduperez source code from https://github.com/eduperez/mwlwifi_LEDE for including package to fw's build directly?

233

My source there is a mirror of https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi, I think you should go directly to the source instead. In your local build folder, there is a "Makefile" file at "packages/kernel/mwlwifi", that contains the following lines:

PKG_VERSION:=10.3.4.0-...
PKG_SOURCE_VERSION:=...

Change the first line to match the name of the kmod-mwlwifi package that you want to create, and the second one to the id of the commit at https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/commits/master that you want to include in your build. For example, for the packages I just announced, I used:

PKG_VERSION:=10.3.4.0-20180305-38c2f25
PKG_SOURCE_VERSION:=38c2f25d393192abfd4b2a9b883a0b867f15fb51

Hope this helps!

234

Side note: eduperez's repository is a fork of official repo - https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi .

To build given version of mwlwifi drivers you should modify two values in package/kernel/mwlwifi/Makefile in lede source tree, i.e.:
PKG_VERSION:=10.3.4.0-20180305
PKG_SOURCE_VERSION:=4591708bfd92b99102976b7ae2571101cbf8518e
to build version from 2018-03-05 (latest). The second param is the git commit id which the build script should check out before building target package.

All other steps are same as previously.

235

New release available:

So far, it seems to be working ok.

1 Like
236

Thank you for your work in making these updates easily available. I will try out the new release later today.
Any expected wifi performance improvements? Is it possible to see the firmware release notes somewhere?

237

As far as I know, only debug capabilities have improved...

I try to put any relevant changes in the release announcements, so people can decide by themselves to update or not; but obviously I could miss something, and firmware code is not open, so any update of the firmware can contain surprises.

However, code for the driver is open source, you can follow the development at https://github.com/kaloz/mwlwifi/commits/master, and see by yourself what has changed on each release. The commit id from that repo matches the name of my packages, so you can easily see what changes are included in each package.

238

Hi Edu!

Do you recommend to update to the latest release (for the 88W8864) or is it better to stick to the release kmod-mwlwifi_4.4.92.10.3.4.0-20170818-760f7bf-1_arm_cortex-a9_vfpv3.ipk

After this there are no more firmware updates for the 88W8864, only for the '89

Thanks in advance!

239

I would not stick to an older release, unless you have a good reason to do it... even if the firmware does not change, there are changes in the drivers, that can affect several chips. I am currently using the latest release (on a WRT3200ACM).

2 Likes
240

Kind of a noob question, but what does this mean?

This commit was created on GitHub.com and signed with a verified signature using GitHub’s key.

I mean this for this release 10.3.4.0-20180305-38c2f25
released this on Mar 19

241

GitHub is the place where the source code is hosted, and that message means that GitHub certifies that a certain change was signed by the person that appears there, and nobody else.

242

I am getting the following error
root@LEDE:/tmp# opkg install --force-downgrade kmod-mwlwifi_4.4.92.10.3.4.0-20180330-fcaea79-9326_arm_cortex-a9_vfpv3.ipk
Collected errors:

  • pkg_init_from_file: Malformed package file kmod-mwlwifi_4.4.92.10.3.4.0-20180330-fcaea79-9326_arm_cortex-a9_vfpv3.ipk.
    root@LEDE:/tmp#
243

Try to download the package again, it works fine for me.

244

Is my model and firmware supported ?

Model Linksys WRT1900ACS
Firmware Version LEDE Reboot 17.01.4 r3560-79f57e422d / LuCI lede-17.01 branch (git-17.290.79498-d3f0685)
Kernel Version 4.4.92
245

This is a newly flashed unit . So wifi driver i beleive is stock on linksys..

246

Yes, it's supported.

247

@eduperez and @abood.alakhras - I have the same exakt release/version and it works fine (just my 2c)