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The following is the list of features supported by WiLink8 driver and device.
For specific features and bug fixes updated in R8.8, see the WiLink8 R8.8 Release Notes . Additionally, WiLink™ 8 WLAN Features User's Guide provides complete details of the WiLink8 supported features.
WL18xx Linux driver uses the open source components along with interface driver for the device to realize Wi-Fi functionalities. Figure 2-1 shows the high level driver partitioning and architecture.
The section below briefs the high-level components in the driver layers and their functionality.
The following section details the integration of the driver to the Linux SDK platform. The references and instructions provided are applicable to any platform using Linux operating system. However specific instructions mentioned below are based on PROCESSOR-SDK-LINUX-AM335X 06_00_00_07. For WiLink8 hardware integration, see the WiLink™ Module Hardware Integration Guide.
The generic steps to integrate the WiLink8 R8.8 driver release manually to any kernel are provided below. The same method can be used for upgrading the WiLink8 driver version of an existing SDK to R8.8 release. However if TI SDK is used (with pre-built kernel) along with “build utilities” scripts can be used. Note that the following steps assume Linux host environment up and running. For more information on setting up your Linux host PC, follow the instructions provided in Processor SDK Getting Started Guide.
Steps 1 and 2 are manual. This is the starting step irrespective of the SDK used. These steps will ensure that default file system provided by the SDK is installed into the SD card. Since as part of the R8.8 WiLink8 WLAN driver build only a subset of components related to the WLAN and the kernel and modules are built, it is important to have the complete default file system installed.
Steps 3, 4 and 6 (except for step -5, DTS/B file) can be performed using the “build_scripts” utility. The DTS/B file is hardware specific and needs to be created based on the hardware design.
The device tree is a set of files in the Linux source that describe the hardware platform. In order to integrate WilInk8 the file needs to have the right configuration to integrate with required hardware interface. For WiLink8 WLAN functionality these include
The default TI processor SDK dts/b file has already enabled the required configurations. The files are automatically chooses at boot time based on the HW platform used. For details of required configurations, see AM335x_evm.dts. Note that these settings may need to be modified based on specific hardware platform used.