While it isn't realistic that free software drivers/firmware will work
indefinitely (and we certainly wouldn't claim that) but there is a certain
level of community support behind these drivers and support over the long
haul. These drivers have been pushed into the mainline kernel and things have
tended to work very well for a very long time. The thing with Atheros is if
you go back far enough they were no better than broadcom (broadcom's a
headache, although there is one chipset that has support, but I was told by
the developer its usage is ill-advised, but there are people here who use at
and think its fine).
Now getting a realistic perception of the problems is a challenge because
there are many other issues which can negatively impact networking and wifi.
From on/off switches (common issue on laptops) that don't work to people
having BIOS configuration issues (plug-n-play support disabled in BIOS) to
blacklisting to having installed non-free wrappers and screwed up there
wireless/networking. Sometimes figuring out where the problem actually lies
is hard to near impossible.
I think the problem is the ath5k stuff was never terribly well supported. It
was “good enough” for the time period (and actually a lot of stuff I'd
still say is just “good enough” unfortunately, but at least it generally
meets 95% of users needs). I have tested ath5k wireless cards as we have a
batch and they worked fine a year or two ago. We never actually sold these
cards mind you and the ath5k drivers and cards date back 10+ years if I'm not
mistaken. The fact they are still working at all is pretty impressive given
the majority have moved on. Well.. we did accidentally sent out a batch of
several to a certain free software organization... that was a bit
embarrassing. However- I learned from them that some additional issues with
the ath5k stuff I wasn't aware of. But even before this I was aware older
Atheros stuff was not that great. And before that there wasn't any support at
all. Atheros did a reverse flip several years ago. They went from not
supporting GNU/Linux at all to hiring an outside developer to come and work
for them who was working on drivers for its chipsets already. The result of
all this is I have a lot of respect for the company or somebody within for
taking action and fixing the problem. Mind you like most companies they are
far from perfect though and I'd still advise avoiding many of the companies
products (although in many cases I'd still advise there products over others
because the others don't provide any free software support and there is a
better chance Atheros might... if we push a bit... which is another reason
I'm a big fan of ThinkPenguin... as we are pushing as one might expect... and
after all I did founded it...).
