= Existing Linux Wireless drivers =
We currently have a fair amount of working drivers that cover most of the available wireless networking cards. However, they don't implement all features and may have some issues, due to various reasons like companies not providing specs. Below is an alphabetically sorted list of drivers and what they currently can and can't do.

All drivers can run in [[en/users/Documentation/modes#STA|station mode]], but not all support the other modes, this is also shown in the table below.

## Note: this table should reflect what the driver can currently do
## if you want to give info on the hw itself do it on the driver page
## providing a link is fine but an actual information page is much preferred
## Oh and do read the text above, it says "alphabetically sorted"...
{{{
#!devtable "autofilter=cfg80211,AP,IBSS,mesh,monitor" link=Driver delimiter=, quotechar="
Driver,Manufacturer,cfg80211,AP,IBSS,mesh,monitor,PHY modes,Buses
Drivers/acx1xx acx1xx,Texas Instruments,yes,?,?,no,?,B,PCI / PCMCIA / USB
Drivers/adm8211 adm8211,ADMtek/Infineon,yes,no,no,no,?,B,PCI,
Drivers/agnx agnx,Airgo/Qualcom,yes,?,?,?,?,A/B/G,PCI,
Drivers/airo airo,Aironet/Cisco,no,?,?,?,?,B,PCI / PCMCIA,
Drivers/ar9170 ar9170usb,ZyDAS/Atheros,yes,no,yes,no,yes,A(1)/B/G/N,USB,
Drivers/arlan arlan,Aironet/Cisco,no,?,?,?,?,pre802.11,ISA,
Drivers/at76c50x-usb at76c50x-usb,Atmel,yes,no,no,no,no,B,USB,
Drivers/ath5k ath5k,Atheros,yes,yes,yes,yes,?,A/B/G,PCI / PCI-E,
Drivers/ath9k ath9k,Atheros,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,A/B/G/N,PCI / PCI-E / AHB,
Drivers/atmel atmel,Atmel,no,?,?,?,?,B,PCI / PCMCIA,
Drivers/b43 b43,Broadcom,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,A(2)/B/G,SSB/PCI/PCI-E/PCMCIA,
Drivers/b43 b43legacy,Broadcom,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,A(2)/B/G,PCI/SSB,
http://hostap.epitest.fi/ hostap,Intersil/Conexant,no,?,?,?,?,B,PCI / PCMCIA,
http://ipw2100.sf.net/ ipw2100,Intel,no,no,yes,no,no,B,PCI,
Drivers/ipw2200 ipw2200,Intel,no,no (3),yes,no,no,A/B/G,PCI,
http://intellinuxwireless.org/ iwl3945,Intel,yes,no,yes,no,no,A/B/G,PCI-E,
http://intellinuxwireless.org/ iwlagn,Intel,yes,no,yes,no,no,A/B/G/N,PCI-E,
Drivers/iwmc3200wifi iwmc3200wifi,Intel,yes,no,yes,no,no,A/G,SDIO,
Drivers/mac80211_hwsim mac80211_hwsim,Jouni,yes,yes,yes,no,yes,A/B/G/N,NONE!,
Drivers/mwl8k mwl8k,Marvell,yes,?,?,?,?,A/B/G/N,PCI,
Drivers/netwave_cs netwave_cs,Netwave/Xircom,no,?,?,?,?,pre802.11,PCMCIA,
Drivers/libertas libertas,Marvell,no,no,yes,yes (4),no,B/G,USB / PCMCIA / SDIO / GSPI,
Drivers/libertastf libertas_tf,Marvell,yes,yes,no,yes,?,B/G,USB,
Drivers/orinoco orinoco,Agere/Intersil/Symbol,yes,no,yes,no,yes,B,PCI / PCMCIA,
Drivers/p54 p54pci,Intersil/Conexant,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,A(1)/B/G,PCI / PCMCIA,
Drivers/p54 p54spi,Conexant/ST-NXP,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,A(1)/B/G,SPI,
Drivers/p54 p54usb,Intersil/Conexant,yes,yes,yes,yes,yes,A(1)/B/G,USB,
http://poldhu.sourceforge.net/ poldhu,NWN,no,?,?,?,?,B,PCMCIA,
http://www.linux-wlan.org/ prism2_usb,Intersil/Conexant,no,?,?,?,?,B,USB,
Drivers/ray_cs ray_cs,Raytheon,no,?,?,?,?,pre802.11,PCMCIA,
Drivers/rndis_wlan rndis_wlan,Broadcom,yes,no,yes,no,no,B/G,USB,
Drivers/rt61pci rt61pci,Ralink,yes,yes,yes,no,yes,A(1)/B/G,PCI,
Drivers/rt73usb rt73usb,Ralink,yes,no,yes,no,yes,A(1)/B/G,USB,
Drivers/rt2400pci rt2400pci,Ralink,yes,yes,yes,no,yes,B,PCI,
Drivers/rt2500pci rt2500pci,Ralink,yes,yes,yes,no,yes,A(1)/B/G,PCI,
Drivers/rt2500usb rt2500usb,Ralink,yes,yes,yes,no,yes,A(1)/B/G,USB,
Drivers/rt2800pci rt2800pci,Ralink,yes,?,?,?,?,A(1)/B/G/N,PCI,
Drivers/rt2800usb rt2800usb,Ralink,yes,?,?,?,?,A(1)/B/G/N,USB,
Drivers/rtl8187 rtl8180,Realtek,yes,no,no,no,?,B/G,PCI,
Drivers/rtl8187 rtl8187,Realtek,yes,no,no,no,?,B/G,USB,
Drivers/rtl8187 rtl8187se,Realtek,yes,no,no,no,?,B/G,PCI-E,
Drivers/rtl819x rtl8192e,Realtek,no,?,?,?,?,B/G/N,PCI-E,
Drivers/rtl819x rtl8192su,Realtek,no,?,?,?,?,B/G/N,USB,
Drivers/vt665x  vt6655,VIA,no,?,?,?,?,A/B/G,PCI,
Drivers/vt665x  vt6656,VIA,no,?,?,?,?,A/B/G,USB,
Drivers/wavelan wavelan,Lucent,no,?,?,?,?,pre802.11,ISA,
Drivers/wavelan_cs wavelan_cs,Lucent,no,?,?,?,?,pre802.11,PCMCIA,
http://code.google.com/p/winbondport/ winbond,Winbond,yes,?,?,?,?,B,USB,
Drivers/wl12xx wl1251,Texas Instruments,yes,?,?,?,?,B/G,SPI,
Drivers/wl3501_cs wl3501_cs,Z-Com,no,?,?,?,?,pre802.11,PCMCIA,
Drivers/zd1201 zd1201,ZyDAS/Atheros,no,?,?,?,?,B,USB,
Drivers/zd1211rw zd1211rw,ZyDAS/Atheros,yes,no,yes,yes,no,A(2)/B/G,USB,
}}}


Notes:
 1. 802.11a capabilities depend on the actual radio chip used.
 2. 802.11a devices exist, but currently can't be used with this driver, A/B/G devices will work in B/G mode only.
 3. There is support with a special, out-of-tree driver and special firmware, see http://sf.net/projects/ipw2200-ap.
 4. Slightly different mesh implementation than mac80211's, in firmware.


See also:

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_wireless_drivers#Linux|Wikipedia wireless drivers]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_wireless_drivers#Linux_2|Wikipedia wireless drivers capabilities]] [[http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/LinuxDrivers#Tables|Seattle Wireless Features Comparison]]

Some drivers were abandoned/deprecated due to creating new, better replacements:
||<tablewidth="100%" tablestyle="text-align: center;" tableclass="devtable"rowstyle="border-bottom: 3px solid black;">'''Driver''' ||'''Manufacturer''' ||'''[[en/developers/Documentation/cfg80211|cfg80211]]''' ||'''[[en/users/Documentation/modes#AP|AP]]''' ||'''[[en/users/Documentation/modes#IBSS|ad-hoc]]''' ||'''[[en/users/Documentation/modes#Mesh|mesh]]''' ||'''[[en/users/Documentation/modes#MON|monitor]]''' ||'''PHY modes''' ||'''BUS''' ||
||[[en/users/Drivers/at76_usb|at76_usb]] ||Atmel ||no ||no ||no ||no ||no ||B ||USB ||
||[[en/users/Drivers/otus|otus]] ||ZyDAS/Atheros ||no ||? ||no ||no ||no ||A/B/G/N ||USB ||
||[[en/users/Drivers/p54|prism54]] ||Intersil/Conexant ||no ||? ||? ||? ||? ||A/B/G ||PCI / PCMCIA ||
||[[en/users/Drivers/stlc45xx|stlc45xx]] ||ST/Nokia ||yes ||no ||no ||no ||no ||B/G ||SPI ||




----