Atheros Releases HAL Code for WiFi Chips

Sep 29, 2008

The U.S. chip producer Atheros has decided to forward the development of Linux drivers for the 802.11a/b/g-WLAN chip by making the Hardware Abstraction Layer code (HAL), available under an open source license.

The source can be found as tarball under the ISC License, on the kernel homepage, announced Louis R. Rodriguez of Atheros on the kernel and ath5K mailing lists.

Atheros wants to work with the Linux community to provide the best possible free drivers for its chips, continues Rodriguez in his E-mail.

An article in the Madwifi–Wiki explains why the proprietary HAL layer has until now, made life difficult for developers of free drivers.

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