Talk:1785: Wifi

This, I believe, is in reference to things like DD-WRT, where someone with knowledge may install it to 'improve' your router. If done right, it can increase the speed and stability, if not, it can brick it. 172.68.78.70 05:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC) That's what I thought too! Girish, 162.158.166.197 05:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC) I installed Hurd on my router dont judge me ok. --162.158.91.137 06:14, 13 January 2017 (UTC) I doubt it is referring to router firmware. The tech-savviness is of the housguest, not of the router owner (though, I can easily imagine somebody updating host router). --162.158.134.106 12:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Some devices need operational firmware downloaded to them after reset, so it's handled at boot time by a firmware downloader. A typical example is devices which have s DSP in them; the DSP's code would be loaded into the device's RAM designated for the purpose. For Wi-Fi, it might handle the low level details of associating with an AP, performing the WPA2 protocol for example so the device looks for the most part logically like any other network interface, e.g. Ethernet. In this case, it would have nothing to do with the firmware in the Wi-Fi AP.

RChandra (talk) 12:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

“In most systems this just works but in the case of more geeky operating systems, like GNU/Linux, it needs to be installed separately.” Ironically, it's quite the opposite these days. On a fresh Windows install you typically have no network drivers, but with a lot of GNU/Linux distros you have network out of the box. 141.101.105.60 09:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I would agree with you on wired connections there, but with the most common Intel or Broadcom WLAN chipsets on laptops it's the other way around. Windows works out of the box (maybe downloads a newer driver from Windows Update once you set up the Internet connection), while especially libre Linux distributions (which are inherently "geekier", because they focus on the political aspect of Free Software instead of something that Just Werks™) lack the non-free firmware required to drive those parts. TisTheAlmondTavern 10:11, 13 January 2017 (UTC)