New SDIO WiFi Driver Added To Linux 4.8

[phoronix]

Phoronix: New SDIO WiFi Driver Added To Linux 4.8

The sole new driver in the kernel's staging area for Linux 4.8 is for some SDIO WiFi cards...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.8-KS7010-Driver

[Jumbotron]

This is actually a really cool addition/upgrade. I'd like the ability to upgrade my old laptop's wifi to the N spec without having a USB dongle taking up a USB port and just waiting to get broken off.

[Jumbotron]

Here's a list from the SD Association's site of some of the possible SD card format add-ons you could use for a laptop.

https://members.sdcard.org/developers/overview/sdio/

I can see how this spec has never really taken off with the advent of smartphones and tablets seeing as how many of these things are built right into those devices. But I do like the fact that you could possibly augment a laptop or 2 in 1 hybrid laptop-tablet with these devices. Particularly if you were to use a 2 in 1 hybrid laptop/table dual booting Linux and Jide Technologies Remix OS that gives you Android OS in a desktop form but all the Android apps you get on your phone.

[Tomin]

This is actually a really cool addition/upgrade. I'd like the ability to upgrade my old laptop's wifi to the N spec without having a USB dongle taking up a USB port and just waiting to get broken off.

Unless your laptop has 802.11b (or older!) Wifi then I doubt you'll get an upgrade at all. Such a tiny card can't have a good antenna and I don't know if there are any SDIO chips that can do 802.11n. I read about a wifi memory card that was hacked to custom software on Linux and that had abysmal speed. Granted, those cards do much more than just Wifi and this news is not about them.

[AJenbo]

It's not all SD readers that support SDIO (rare for laptops). Also the tip of the wifi sticks out of the SD port, so no better then a USB dongle. The standard pretty much died along with PDA's when the iPhone landed.

[Jumbotron]

Yeah....the more I looked into this it seems new tech based on this standard is stalled....or dead. I have seen a WIFI adaptor based on SDIO in a friends computer. The end sticks out less than even one of the smaller USB based WIFI adaptors. So....yeah....not exactly flush but better than USB. Besides....I'd rather have a destroyed SD card slot than a USB port on a laptop. But alas....a moot point if there will never be anything newer than WIFI standard G in the SD card format ( like the the Spectec card in the picture )

[Gusar]

Every phone and tablet out there has SDIO wifi, and SDIO audio, and possibly another SDIO thing or two. So the standard itself is very much in use, but for built-in devices that are wired internally via SDIO, not actual cards.

[Nilsnsn]

SDIO can also be utilized by M.2 key-E cards. see http://web.archive.org/web/201402030...troduction.pdf on page 8, right lower table

[Sonadow]

Every phone and tablet out there has SDIO wifi, and SDIO audio, and possibly another SDIO thing or two. So the standard itself is very much in use, but for built-in devices that are wired internally via SDIO, not actual cards.

Was about to say this as well. The Marvell 80211ac chips found in all the newer Surfaces use a SDIO interface, as do all the sub $100 Chinese tablets utilizing a Realtek wifi chip.

[Sonadow]

Grrr, can't edit post.

Anyway, SDIO definitely still lives on. Not in the standard replaceable SD card form factor we are used to, but in the form of embedded (aka soldered down) modules.