MT7921(4)

📦 in nixpkgs unstable

💖 MT7921(4) 💖

okay so first things first, this whole page lives in the Kernel Interfaces Manual section, and it's literally all about the mt7921 — MediaTek IEEE 802.11ax wireless network driver. yes bestie, that one. let's get into it 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

mt7921 — the MediaTek IEEE 802.11ax wireless network driver. that's it, that's the name, and it ate 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

okay so the best part? this driver will auto-load without any user interaction using devmatch(8) — but only if that's enabled in rc.conf(5). so like, if you've got the vibes turned on, you literally do nothing. iconic behavior.

but only if auto-loading is explicitly disabled, then you're gonna place these lines in rc.conf(5) to manually load the driver as a module at boot time:

kld_list="${kld_list} if_mt7921"

the driver should automatically load any firmware needed for the particular chipset, no cap. 🫶

⚠️ it is discouraged to load the driver from loader(8). like, just don't. ngl it's giving unnecessary drama.

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so mt7921 provides support for MediaTek MT7921E wireless network devices, and it's derived from MediaTek's Linux mt76 driver — so it's basically the FreeBSD glow-up of a Linux classic, periodt.

here's the part you need to know: this driver requires firmware to be loaded before it will work. the package wifi-firmware-mt76-kmod from the ports/net/wifi-firmware-mt76-kmod port needs to be installed before the driver is loaded. otherwise no wlan(4) interface can be created using ifconfig(8). like, zero. nada. 😭 and if you want the easy route, you can use fwget(8) to install the correct firmware package. it's literally that simple, iykyk.

under the hood, the driver uses the linuxkpi_wlan and linuxkpi compat framework to bridge between the Linux and native FreeBSD driver code, and also to the native net80211(4) wireless stack. it's giving bilingual queen energy 🌈

🔥 HARDWARE 🔥

the mt7921 driver supports PCIe devices with the following chipsets:

  • MediaTek MT7921E

one chipset. one crown. 👑

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

go read them, bestie, they're all main characters too 💖

⭐ HISTORY ⭐

the mt7921 driver first appeared in FreeBSD 14.0. so it's new-ish, it's fresh, it's serving debut era ✨

💀 BUGS 💀

Certainly.

😭😭 the manpage really said "yes" and moved on. no notes.

but okay here's the real tea — while mt7921 supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax modes, the compatibility code currently only supports 802.11a/b/g modes. support for 802.11n/ac/ax is to come. so like, it'll get there, it's just not there yet 🙈

and that's the whole page, bestie! this one came to you from Debian, dated November 10, 2024 — a little gift from the manpage archives, brought to you with love and zero skipped details 🎀💜

📦 where this page comes from