[lvc-project] On brcm80211 maintenance and support

[Phil Elwell]

Hi Kalle,

On Wed, 11 Oct 2023 at 11:32, Kalle Valo <kvalo at kernel.org> wrote:
>
> Phil Elwell <phil at raspberrypi.com> writes:
>
> > This is just a quick note to say that Raspberry Pi obviously has a
> > vested interest in the future of the brcmfmac driver. In our
> > downstream tree we use the upstream driver largely unmodified - there
> > are a handful of patches that tinker around the edges, the largest of
> > which is in the area of firmware location and being phased out - no
> > patches from Infineon/Cypress, Synaptics or Broadcom.
> >
> > We're very much WiFi users as opposed to WiFi developers, but if
> > there's something useful we can contribute then please speak up and
> > I'll see what we can do.
>
> Is it possible to run upstream vanilla kernels on a Raspberry Pi? For
> example at least once a month take latest wireless-next[1], install it
> to a Raspberry Pi and run some simple wireless tests. If any regressions
> are found report that to linux-wireless. Preferably with a bisect log to
> easily find the offending commit.
>
> Testing patches before they are applied would be even more helpful,
> especially for the risky ones. We have a hard "no regressions" rule so
> earlier we catch the regressions the better.
>
> I also wonder should there be a dedicated brcm80211 specific mailing
> list? That way people who want to help could easily follow and discuss
> brcm80211 development, and no need to follow linux-wireless. For example
> we do that with ath12k driver.

It's a very busy time for us at the moment, but a monthly-ish wireless
smoke test sounds reasonable. Hopefully once we have a process for
that then occasional regression checks on upcoming patches would
become possible.

A dedicated brcm80211 mailing list would be good - I'd definitely sign up.

Phil