Group: Hardware/History/brcm47xx WiFi Access points

The router made with Broadcom 47xx card usually run a 2.4 kenrel with a Proprietary kernel module and a proprietary firmware for the wifi driver by default. But:

• the 2.6 kernel has support for the bcm47xx in 2 drivers:
  • b43
  • b43-legacy for older cards.
• there is a free firmware called openfwwf for some broadcom cards
• openwrt build system supports both(the free firmware and the free driver)

So all what we have to do is to:

• build a rootfs with support for both
• customize our rootfs to make it act like a router(the init scripts etc...)

Howto create a free rootfs

checkout the svn of openwrt

svn co svn://svn.openwrt.org/openwrt/trunk

then type:

make menuconfig

and chose your options:

• chose bcm47xx as target
• chose wifi if you need the wifi
• chose the free firmware as wifi firmware
• chose hostapd
• chose the additional packages you want

then type:

make

and wait a lot of time until completion