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Document the minimal WiFi firmware variant - #39

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Document the minimal WiFi firmware variant#39
mairas merged 1 commit into
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docs/wifi-minimal-firmware

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@mairas

@mairas mairas commented Aug 27, 2026

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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.md gains 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 the update-alternatives --config cyfmac43455-sdio.bin switch, 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:

  • standard — …dfsradar…swdiv…roamprof…, version 7.45.265 (2023-08-29)
  • minimal — …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 --strict and check-anchors site --exclude 'print_page/*' (1910 links, all resolve).

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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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>
@mairas
mairas force-pushed the docs/wifi-minimal-firmware branch from 1b20005 to 3b3f2db Compare August 27, 2026 08:29
@mairas
mairas merged commit 0e70a34 into main Aug 27, 2026
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@mairas
mairas deleted the docs/wifi-minimal-firmware branch August 27, 2026 08:32
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