Use libre boot website's info for reference. The Athero cars were the only open source option. They are from the aughties. That is your only option. It is the same for hardware - libre boot stuff with a Core Duo era processor, nothing newer is trusted hardware.
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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For something relatively fast, I suggest you stick to Intel chipsets, and avoid realtek like the plague. As others mentioned, you can go with Atheros, but your speed will certainly suffer, as well as probably breaking the ability to put the computer to sleep with S3.
I understand you would rather go with 100% FOSS, but this carries trade-offs.
I got an Atheros card, which is fine for WiFi on Debian 12 and was cheap to buy. Drivers were in the Debian foss repo. Bluetooth is not working on it though. Interestingly, the Bluetooth did work under PureOS but I never figured out why.
Interestingly, the Bluetooth did work under PureOS but I never figured out why.
The bluetooth probably needs a non-free firmware blob, as most of them do.
Even if so, it would likely still have proprietary blobs, just embedded into a ROM or flash chip on the card. Personally, I'd rather have firmware loaded at runtime over hard-coded, at least then the blob is able to be reverse engineered possibly.
Intel has entered the chat
I don't think they exist. The drivers that don't load firmware blobs into the WiFi device just come pre-packaged with (probably outdated) firmware blobs. Very few devices work without firmware.
You can add a layer of isolation but hooking your device up to a random access point over ethernet, though the experience certainly won't be as nice.
I think there are also (incomplete) attempts to write fully open-source firmware for WiFi chips like the ESP32, but I don't know if anyone ever wrote a fast interconnect for the standard dev boards for that. You may need to set up your own PCB to turn those into a fully open source WiFi chip. Performance will be very limited, of course (10-20mbps) because these IoT oriented boards lack hardware processing.
Atheros ath9k (and previously ath5k) has been 100% FOSS for many years.
Yes, but does that still count as "modern"?
ath9k supports N, so I'd consider it modern at least, since I think the vast majority of the population still use it.
N is not modern in any sense of the word. I think 6 is more used then you would think. All ISP I know are giving out 6 access points and have for awhile.
I install residential and business internet for a living and I have yet to encounter a single AX AP operating in the wild (yes I check every time, and yes my devices support it). And our own routers only do N.
We are already having wifi 6 routers being replaced with 6e capable ones.
Just don't ask about how few of the devices used actually support 6ghz.
I personally don't recommend the ath9k cards. There are a handful of routers they do not work with. You'll have to disable QoS to stop the packet drops.
that's funny because my (wired) ISP router already has this problem, I can't use ssh without setting IPQoS=0
My isp router is like that too, but on wifi. QCA9377 on an Actiontec mi424 rev I.
You could always get an Ethernet-connected AP. This will allow you to use the latest WiFi but not compromise your OS.
What os is the ap running?
That's the beautiful thing - it doesn't matter.
some people would prefer to only use FOSS software and hardware, though
If you are going that route just use vfio
Intel ax210 worked good for me so far, but i don't know if there are software blobs since everything worked from the get go without needing to install anything