Document the minimal WiFi firmware variant - #39
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The CYW43455 standard firmware seizes up in practice with only a few access point clients connected, and then admits none at all. Raspberry Pi OS ships a minimal variant selected through update-alternatives, and the docs never mentioned it. Recommend it for any device whose hotspot is in real use, record the switch, what the minimal variant gives up (DFS radar detection, automatic channel selection, roaming assistance, antenna diversity), and how to revert. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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The CYW43455 radio seizes up in practice with only a few access point clients connected, and then admits none at all. A second firmware variant,
cyfmac43455-sdio-minimal.bin, does not — it is what our own test devices run — but nothing in the docs said so, or said what it costs.docs/user-guide/networking.mdgains a "Serving more access point clients" subsection under Access point mode. It recommends the minimal variant for any device whose hotspot is in real use, and records theupdate-alternatives --config cyfmac43455-sdio.binswitch, the client counts (about 7 against about 19), the features the minimal variant drops, and how to revert.The trade-off list is measured, not repeated from a forum. The two firmware binaries on a HALPI2 carry their own feature strings:
…dfsradar…swdiv…roamprof…, version 7.45.265 (2023-08-29)…maxclients…, version 7.45.241 (2021-11-01)so DFS radar detection, antenna diversity and roaming profiles are verifiably absent from the minimal build, and the extra client slots are verifiably the point of it. The loss of automatic channel selection comes from our own earlier AP work rather than from the binary, which is why the page frames the fixed channel as the fix when the hotspot fails to come up rather than as an unconditional step.
Verified with
mkdocs build --strictandcheck-anchors site --exclude 'print_page/*'(1910 links, all resolve).🤖 Generated with Claude Code