pgj / freebsd-wifibox-image Goto Github PK

Extend the wifibox-guest(5) man page with information on how to install packages (for e.g. missing firmwares) when no Internet connection is available for the guest. pgj/freebsd-wifibox#6 (comment) could serve a basis.

Introduce support for older Broadcom wireless network cards by making it possible for the user to install the b43-firmware package. This involves the following steps:

• Download manually the source of the open-source Broadcom driver: https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/12358410 -- that is due to its restrictive licensing.
• Build the package from sources as described here: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Wi-Fi#Broadcom_Wi-Fi_Chipset_Users

Make it the easiest as possible within the legal boundaries.

As part of the wifibox-alpine(5) man page, describe ways on how to increase or decrease the size of the Alpine Linux virtual machine image. For example, use the information from https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/ayzdpr/expanding_disk_in_alpine_linux/ for expansion, and from https://averagelinuxuser.com/shrink-linux-partition-without-losing-data/ for shrinking.

In order to support wireless cards based on newer Qualcomm Atheros chipsets out of the box, firmwares for the ath10k driver have to be installed for the virtual machine image. In case of Alpine Linux, this is shipped with the linux-firmware-ath10k package, which has been verified to be working, per pgj/freebsd-wifibox#6.

Introduce support for Broadcom wireless network cards that are not covered by the brcm80211 driver in the Linux kernel by making it possible for the user to install the original Broadcom Linux STA 64-bit driver.

• Download manually the source: https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/12358410 -- that is due to its restrictive licensing.
• Build the package from sources.

Alpine Linux does not have a corresponding package, but the broadcom-wl package could be ported from Arch Linux and verified to be working.

In pgj/freebsd-wifibox#1 (comment) the following issue was reported:

I had trouble getting the Intel AX 201 card in my new Dell Precision 7560, running 13-STABLE.
I found this thread; https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=212371 , and by renaming the file /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm (mount -o rw,remount / in console first ofc), this alpine linux picked it up.

Investigate the issue and provide a mitigation for it.

Alpine Linux implicitly comes with support for the Realtek RTL8821CE chipsets via the rtw88 driver in the mainline kernel, but this has to be verified to be working. As an alternative, the rtl8821ce-lts Alpine Linux package can be evaluated, with the help of the instructions given in pgj/freebsd-wifibox#6 (comment).

Related issue at rtl8821ce: tomaspinho/rtl8821ce#142