Mainline linux built by fenix and kresq not listing wifi channel 13+ (and not connect)

Hi all, sorry but there is no such thing as debian group to post this:

on vim1 firmare built w/ feni091 in docker, server variant w/ mianline uboot and mainline kernel,

I cannot make my system able to show my home wifi network (using channel 13)
I use this command
sudo nmcli d wifi list
and it shows, for 2.4GHz SSIDs, only those using channels <=12 !

another hint is that I have some crda related error in dmesg:
khadas@Khadas:~$ dmesg| grep cfg80211
[ 4.011735] cfg80211: Loading compiled-in X.509 certificates for regulatory database
[ 4.056987] cfg80211: Loaded X.509 cert ‘sforshee: 00b28ddf47aef9cea7’
[ 4.067494] cfg80211: failed to load regulatory.db

my crda config file looks like…
khadas@Khadas:~$ cat /etc/default/crda
# Set REGDOMAIN to a ISO/IEC 3166-1 alpha2 country code so that iw(8) may set
# the initial regulatory domain setting for IEEE 802.11 devices which operate
# on this system.
#
# Governments assert the right to regulate usage of radio spectrum within
# their respective territories so make sure you select a ISO/IEC 3166-1 alpha2
# country code suitable for your location or you may infringe on local
# legislature. See `/usr/share/zoneinfo/zone.tab’ for a table of timezone
# descriptions containing ISO/IEC 3166-1 alpha2 country codes.

REGDOMAIN=FR

… and iw reg get says…

khadas@Khadas:~$ sudo iw reg get
global
country FR: DFS-ETSI
(2402 - 2482 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
(5170 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (N/A), AUTO-BW
(5250 - 5330 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW
(5490 - 5710 @ 160), (N/A, 27), (0 ms), DFS
(57000 - 66000 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

please help me to understand where is the issue and how to solve it.
I did manage to solve the same isue in ubuntu until now, but this debian does thing a bit different,

tks in advance

@hyphop, please help soon!

current mainline wifi driver have alot of limitation - and im not sure about good supporting from opensource in feature ;-(
for example rb3+ have same problems https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/raspberry_pi_foundation/raspberry_pi_3_bplus ( Unsupported Functions:

Country Code setting, WiFi 2.4GHz (work in snapshot), WIP)

if u need good wifi - easy solution is usb dongle (realtek or intel chip with good linux support)
maybe pcie wifi cards ( for example ath10 based or same realtek and intel )

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in non mailine, VIM1 was OK with the same router I have used for years, maybe we can use an old driver from the old amlogic linux 4.9 days ?

we only have 2 USB ports on VIM1 I cannot afford to dedicate one for wifi as there is already onboard wifi, and
in non mailine, the wifi driver if OK, so can you eventually use the old driver from the old amlogic linux 4.9 into your mainline kernels please ?
tks

2 Likes

its not true we have always 3 USB ports ( 1-2 on board and 3 - on pins)

in non mailine, the wifi driver if OK, so can you eventually use the old driver from the old amlogic linux 4.9 into your mainline kernels please ?
tks

both drivers use same FW binaries

mainline brcmfmac driver and legacy dhd - have to many diffs - and yes brcmfmac - still have to much problems

PS: i think nobody want backport dhd version to mainline kernel
– need try to improve brcmfmac

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ok, thanks for explaining that the problem is related to broadcom firmware source code in mainline linux kernel. so the issue is not vim specific, and could be worked around by temporarily giving up using the embedded chipset that is not supported by opensource codes ! oh my god :japanese_ogre: this is horrible.
accrding to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open-source_wireless_drivers some non free code is required for mainline to support these chips,
so which wifi chipset manufacturer would your recommend to use with mainline kernel and wich has much less issue than broadcom ?

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for pci its was every time ATH9k / ATH10K drivers which works fine !
but other drivers and interface its headache everytime )

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Hi, I understand that the support of a sdio WiFi adapter like the one on vim1pro comes thru 3 files : nvram text file and maybe two additional binaries.
Ap6255 support files seem to also come from the linux-firmware package ( at least for arch based distros), is it the same for openwrt ?

driver its same brcmfmac mainline driver - and same blobs

And from where do these blobs come: cypress or some reverse engineering teams of the open source community ?
I am tempted by the files here https://github.com/RPi-Distro/firmware-nonfree/tree/master/brcm , I wonder if they can be used on openwrt and manjaro…

I’ve just tested ubuntu 20.02 server linux kernel 5.9rc2 (built by offical khadas github actions): after doing the crdra stuff and rebooting and checking that iw reg get returns FR as expected, this september 2020 ubuntu’s broadcom wifi driver still does not works ok for detecting channel 13+ networks :poop:

Wireless routers have fourteen different channels they can use for 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, but three of them are off limits. Channels 12 and 13 are allowed in low-power mode, while channel 14 is banned—and only allowed in Japan.

tell me plz :wink: why u really need it ?

if those extra bands exist, it is because some country will need and will use them :innocent:, like in mine.
So channel 13 is the best 2.4GHz band option for me to use daily in my building for the last 2-3 years