ATH10K(4)

🦋 ATH10K(4) 🦋

okay bestie so this is a page from the Kernel Interfaces Manual and it's literally all about the ath10k driver — no cap ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

ath10k — the Qualcomm Atheros IEEE 802.11ac wireless network driver 💖 yes she's a whole wifi driver, main character energy fr

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

okay so here's the vibe: the driver auto-loads all by itself, zero user interaction, using devmatch(8) — but only if that's enabled in rc.conf(5). slay, effortless 💅

Only if auto-loading is explicitly disabled do you have to do anything manually. In that case, drop these lines into rc.conf(5) so the driver loads as a module at boot time:

kld_list="${kld_list} if_ath10k"

🫶 lowkey important: it is discouraged to load the driver from loader(8). like, don't do that. ngl just don't 🙈

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the ath10k driver is derived from Qualcomm Atheros' Linux ath10k driver — it's giving crossover episode 🌈

bestie listen, this driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work 😭 like it literally cannot function without it. The package wifi-firmware-ath10k-kmod from the ports/net/wifi-firmware-ath10k-kmod port needs to be installed before the driver is loaded. Otherwise? no wlan(4) interface can be created using ifconfig(8). periodt. 💀

The driver uses the linuxkpi_wlan and linuxkpi compat framework to bridge between the Linux and native FreeBSD driver code, and also to bridge to the native net80211(4) wireless stack — iconic little translator situation 🧚

And here's the tea ☕ while ath10k supports all of 802.11 a/b/g/n and ac, the compatibility code currently only supports 802.11 a/b/g modes. Support for 802.11 n/ac is to come — she's coming, she's just not here yet 🌸

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👑 HARDWARE 👑

The ath10k driver supports PCIe devices with these chipsets, and yes we're listing every single one because every queen gets her moment ✨:

• QCA6174
• QCA9377
• QCA9887
• QCA9888
• QCA988X
• QCA9984
• QCA99X0

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🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

• wlan(4)
• ifconfig(8)
• wpa_supplicant(8)

go read those too, iykyk 🦋

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⭐ HISTORY ⭐

The ath10k driver first appeared in FreeBSD 14.0 🔥 a legend was born

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💅 BUGS 💅

Certainly. 😭💀 that's it. that's the whole section. she said what she said.

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and that's the page bestie!! 🫶 this little writeup came from the Debian peeps and it's dated September 30, 2024 — mwah, thanks for reading, ily, go install your firmware 💖✨🎀