Wi-Fi card with bluetooth that works with free software?
Recently I bought a new laptop to replace my now-dead Alienware M11x. My M11x had an Atheros wi-fi card (bought seperately and replaced the original) and a seperate bluetooth card that already worked fine.
When I bought my new laptop, an ASUS Q501LA, everything worked except for the wi-fi card as it needed non-free firmware (Intel). So, I replaced it with the same Atheros card from my M11x and wi-fi was working fine. But, no bluetooth.
I found out that the bluetooth was actually on the wi-fi card itself and not seperate like it was on my M11x, and so my new laptop doesn't have bluetooth, which I often used. Does anybody know of any wi-fi card that exists that has bluetooth and works with free software?
I'd prefer not to use a USB dongle if possible.
You want a miniPCIe card with Atheros wifi and non-Atheros Bluetooth
(since Atheros needs nonfree firmware). I don't know if there are such
cards.
It's really unfortunate that Atheros decides to have wi-fi cards that work with free software, but choose not to do the same for bluetooth.
I am a member!
It is a departmental issue. A different part of Atheros designed and worked on the firmware for the USB chipset that is on the atheros wifi/blueooth card. Somebody would have to talk to the guys in that department in order to get it released. It would probably be doable, but only if the developers in that department cooperated. The other departments and higher ups (executive level) have already been cooperative in signing off on the release of firmware code.
I believe there are only two mini pcie half height cards actually being manufactured. One is an atheros 802.11n (pcie interface) / atheros bluetooth (USB interface) solution and the other is a realtek 802.11n (pcie interface) / CSR bluetooth (USB interface) solution.
Humorously each card has half of it which is free software friendly and the other half which is not. So at the end of the day there are no good solutions to this problem other than an atheros 802.11n only mini pcie half height card and a separate USB bluetooth dongle.
The Q501LA has an internal battery, and this design resulted in a cutdown of other, "less" necessary parts such as place for a dedicated bluetooth card. Since BT on Atheros wireless cards are driven by the ath3k kernel module (which obviously needs non-free firmware blobs), your only choice is to use some external adapter.