Sorry to make two threads in a single day, but this was rather unrelated to my other thread.
Simply put, is the WiFi driver/board already freed and is it 802.11ac capable?
I’m just asking because if it isn’t yet freed, I figure it’d be better for by to buy airgapped and get FSF RYF-certified Wireless and BluTooth listed on their site instead.
Yes I know that none of their’s is AC capable either. Basically my decision tree is follows:
If freed and AC Capable: Heck yeah, no need to think of this any further then.
If freed but not AC capable: Eh… kind of disappointing but not a big deal. Will use internal.
If not freed but AC capable: Meh, just go ahead and get it anyway then, external cards can be a pain and it has a killswitch so… good enough for now I guess. Surely they’ll update it later or something.
If not freed and isn’t AC capable - May as well buy FSF RYF external ones then.
Hi,
it is freed since we are using the ATH9k, though it is not 802.11ac but 802.11n with dual band (2.4GHz + 5GHz).
The Bluetooth is not yet freed (ATH3k).
Sorry to make two threads in a single day, but this was rather unrelated to my other thread.
I would consider it a better practice than a single messy thread
Simply put, is the WiFi driver/board already freed and is it 802.11ac capable?
As a complement to @nicole.faerber’s anwser, for further questions it might be worth having a look at Puri.sm FAQ. Your question has already been answered there, and you can find details regarding the hardware, and whether it is freed or not.
Does the Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 wireless adapter use a free driver?
Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer, Purism is using Debian main as our base distribution, which by definition strips any non-free software as well as any binary blobs from all software. Debian’s Linux kernel is strips of all non-free components from mainline Linux kernel and puts them into separate package. The driver that the Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter uses is the ath9k.
I’m just asking because if it isn’t yet freed, I figure it’d be better for by to buy airgapped and get FSF RYF-certified Wireless and BluTooth listed on their site instead.
It seems Purism way of doing thing is : first, realease a product that works well, then improve its freedom. Have a quick look at how they handled Intel Management Engine, it will probably make you confident regarding their support.
Yes, thanks for the hint. That one should work with 802.11ac.
But maybe the kill switch won’t work with it, especially because of the missing bluetooth module.
The pin layout could be different.
