drivers/net/wireless/marvell/libertas · keep-annotate

Marvell Libertas 88W8xxx 802.11b/g Wi-Fi adapters

Marvell's Libertas family of 802.11b/g wireless chips (88W8385, 8388, 8686, and 8688) used in mid-2000s to early-2010s laptops, embedded boards, and notably the OLPC XO-1 educational laptop. The chips appeared as SDIO, USB, and CompactFlash Wi-Fi modules in low-power and embedded designs of that era.

keep-annotate conf=0.80 last_sold=2011 deploy=low replacement=none subsystem=net category=networking-wireless

80%

recommendation

Worth keeping but documenting its niche, because the hardware is firmly legacy 802.11b/g from the mid-2000s and is no longer sold, yet the code is still receiving real bug fixes — including a use-after-free fix backported to stable in 2026. There is no single modern replacement driver covering the whole chipset family (the libertas_tf variant only handles the OLPC XO-1's 88W8388), so removing it would strand the remaining users while maintenance burden stays low.

repository signals

30 files

14,298 source lines

57 commits, 5y

+367 / −1,507 lines added / removed, 5y

34 authors, 5y

monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 57 total · active in 31/61 months

sources

spinics.net
A March 2026 stable backport of "wifi: libertas: fix use-after-free in lbs_free_adapter()" shows the driver is still receiving upstream/stable bug fixes.
cateee.net
LKDDb identifies this as the Marvell 8xxx Libertas WLAN driver and shows CONFIG_LIBERTAS present through current 6.x kernels.
wireless.docs.kernel.org
Linux Wireless docs describe `libertas_tf` as a thin-firmware alternative only for the 88W8388 USB device in the OLPC XO-1, not a general replacement for the whole Libertas family.
wikidevi.wi-cat.ru
Device listings tie `libertas` to older 802.11b/g-era 88W8385/8388/8686/8688 hardware, with documented devices concentrated in the mid-2000s to early-2010s legacy window.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Obtained evidence via shell (`rg` in-tree and `git log` with safe.directory override) plus web search. Local git history showed real 2024-2026 driver-specific fixes and cleanups, and web search found a 2026 stable patch URL but no removal/deprecation thread. LKDDb URL was obtained by web search for CONFIG_LIBERTAS; Linux Wireless docs and WikiDevi URLs were obtained by web search for Libertas/OLPC hardware context. Recommendation is `keep-annotate`: maintenance is still active enough to argue against deprecation, but the hardware family appears legacy with only low ongoing deployment and no clear single replacement driver for the full chipset set.