Linux's Qualcomm Ath10k Driver Getting WoWLAN, WCN3990 Support

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Networking on 15 October 2018 at 05:55 PM EDT. 12 Comments
LINUX NETWORKING
The Qualcomm/Atheros "Ath10k" Linux driver coming up in the Linux 4.20~5.0 kernel merge window is picking up two prominent features.

First up, the Ath10k driver is finally having WoWLAN support -- Wake on Wireless LAN. WoWLAN has been supported by the kernel for years and more recently is getting picked up by Linux networking user-space configuration utilities. Ath10k is becoming the latest Linux wireless driver supporting WoWLAN (WIPHY_WOWLAN_NET_DETECT) for automatically waking up the system when within range of an a known SSID.

The other interesting bit with the Ath10k driver for this next Linux kernel cycle is supporting the Qualcomm wcn3990 wireless hardware. Basic support is in place for the Qualcomm WCN3990 WiFi+Bluetooth chip. The Bluetooth patches have already been out there while now the WiFi support is queued. This WiFi chip is used by the likes of the Snapdragon 835 and 660 platforms.

This mainline kernel support for the WCN3990 is prominent with soon potentially having nice ARM-powered Linux laptops and working WiFi support is obviously critical.

These Ath10k Linux WLAN driver improvements were queued in net-next for the Linux 4.20 (or 5.0) cycle kicking off next week.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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