Find wireless devices with FOSS firmware here.
As there’s no FOSS firmware options beyond Wireless-N this information may be of necessity to some users.
This is an ongoing project to make finding Linux compatible devices as easy as possible. Please comment your experiences or any information below and i’ll try to incorporate it into this post.
|Standards|Freq
| — | — | — |
|Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax)|2.4/5 GHz
|Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ad)|60 GHz
|Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac)|5 GHz
|Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n)|2.4/5 GHz
Below is a chart for AC/AX/AD support in the Kernel combining information from kernel.org’s table, Wikipedia’s table, deviwiki’s table, Debian and various info pages.
Choosing a device using one of these Chipsets should provide a high likelyhood of success if paired with it’s Driver. Most/all of these are available from popular repos or pre-installed (ex: Ubuntu) depending on your OS.
| Driver | Manufacturer | FOSS | cfg80211 | AP | IBSS | mesh | monitor | PHY modes | Buses | Chipsets | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC/AX: | |||||||||||
| ath11k | Atheros | No | yes | yes | no | yes* | yes* | A/B/G/N/AC/AX | PCI-E / AHB | QCA6390 | Requires custom install |
| iwlwifi | Intel | No | yes | yes* | yes | no | yes | A/B/G/N/AC/AX | PCI-E | AX210, AX201, AX200 | AX200 tested good by @gemmakaru |
| mt76 | Mediatek | No | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | A/B/G/N/AC/AX | PCIe / SoC / USB / SDIO | MT7612U, MT7610U | MT7612U tested good and MT7610U tested good by ALFA Networks |
| AC/AD: | |||||||||||
| wil6210 | Atheros | No | yes | yes | no | no | yes | A/B/G/N/AC/AD | PCIe | Old versions not supported | |
| AC: | |||||||||||
| ath10k | Atheros | No | yes | yes | yes* | yes* | yes* | A/B/G/N/AC | PCI-E / AHB / SDIO | QCA6164, QCA6174, QCA9880v2, QCA9882v2, QCA9890v2, QCA9892v2 | GoodSupport:QCA6174 NoSupport:QCA98xx hw1.0 |
| iwlwifi | Intel | No | yes | yes* | yes | no | yes | A/B/G/N/AC | PCI-E | 9560, 9462, 9461, 9260, 3168, 8265, 8260, 7265, 7260, 3165, 3160 | |
| brcmfmac | Broadcom | No | yes | yes | yes | no | no | A(1)/B/G/N/AC | PCI-E | ||
| brcmsmac | Broadcom | No | yes | yes | yes | no | no | A(1)/B/G/N/AC | USB / SDIO | ||
| qtnfmac | Quantenna | ? | yes | yes | no | no | no | A/B/G/N/AC | PCI-E | ||
| *Only some devices |
Resources
FOSS and General resources here
Debian non-free support for Atheros and Realtek firmware
Debian -- Details of package firmware-atheros in sid
Debian -- Details of package firmware-realtek in sid
WikiDevi lists of AC and AX hardware
https://web.archive.org/web/20191002210942/https://wikidevi.com/wiki/List_of_802.11ac_Hardware/Wireless_Adapters
List of 802.11ax Hardware - WikiDevi
Intel’s list of their chipsets supported by iwlwifi driver: Linux* Support for Intel® Wireless Adapters