Intel Releases Linux Driver For Centrino WLAN 285
Werner Heuser writes "Finally Intel has made their different announcements about
Linux support for the WLAN part of the Centrino technology
become true. Though not yet officially announced
an Open-Source driver with included firmware
is available at SourceForge.
The driver is still experimental and supposed to work
with 2.4 Kernels as well as with 2.6 ones." (See these previous stories for some background.)
Intel Feeling the Pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This couldn't be better timed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks, Intel... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like I'm going to be sniffing around for a refurbed IBM T41 ThinkPad with Centrino tech in the future.
Re:Thanks, Intel... (Score:5, Insightful)
Better than no driver at all...
Hardly Intel... (Score:5, Insightful)
when the SourceForge web site clearly states in the first paragraph.
"This project was created to enable support for the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 (IPW2100) mini PCI adapter. This project is intended to be a community effort as much as is possible given some working constraints (mainly, no HW documentation is available)"
Sounds like Intel haven't helped at all and some enterprising folks have done their own. Kudos to them, shame on Intel.
And shame on Werner and Timothy for getting basic cursory facts right. Unless of course the SF website is failing to give credit to Intel.
Re:Open Source Driver + Firmware (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO, this is what all wlan dealers should be doing... if you can't give direct access to the hardware due to possible legal/FCC constraints, then you should have firmware to handle the interfacing so that you can at least release firmware interface specs, and hopefully be able to cut down on cross development costs by having your firmware patches enhance both linux and windows functionality while stomping out mutual bugs.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
This allows the community to help stear the portions of the code that don't require the documentation and to help them properly tie the driver into Linux.
As long as the code isn't a complete mess it will also be possible to get some understanding of the workings of the chip from the code.
I agree that it is not ideal, however it's better than a binary-only driver.
Re:This couldn't be better timed... (Score:-1, Insightful)
Re:This is a great sign (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah I know pretty soon we might get some linux support from other companies! Like NVidia, 3Comm, Ceative Labs, ATI, Netgear, Linksys, man pretty soon I'm gonna be able to build a sweet linux computer!
*Looks at his own two linux computers*
Oh...
I'd actually be more excited about Intel's decision if they had any products I actually wanted. I don't know of any companies I'd buy from whose products don't work in linux one way or another. Sure some things might not work, but I haven't run into anything in the past 2-3 years that I couldn't get working in linux although setting up my ATI card was a real pain. There are even a few no name devices that I wouldn't expect to work, that just happened to have support since they use the same chipset as like 40 other no name devies.
Re:Don't bother yet, its not finished (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bzzt. Wrong. Look who's doing this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly I think the rest of my posting stands. While it's obvious some people have put hard work into this I don't think Intel have met the promises covered in the previous stories.
Re:This couldn't be better timed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Go read the licenses: what company name do you read there?
On my screen FireFox renders seveal times the word "Intel"... but maybe It's just me.
They are releasing the specs and a semi-working beta to the community. Their developers AND the voluntary ones will improve the driver.
That's EXACTLY what linux users and developers have been asking for ages, i reckon.
It's a win-win situation: Intel gets a fully working and highly optimized driver for free and in a shorter time, and the community gets a GOOD driver for free.
Now tell us: what's wrong with Intel's approach, please.
Re:Thanks, Intel... (Score:5, Insightful)
Closed source drivers are evil, and are in fact what triggered RMS to begin the Free Software movement. They encourage complacency while giving nothing.
Re:Thanks, Intel... (Score:5, Insightful)
Quit bitching. IICRC, NVidia doesn't own all the code in their drivers and anyway, why should they be forced to disclose stuff they consider a trade secret? They provide solid, working drivers for an OS used by like 1% of the desktop market. That's pretty impressive, imo.
Re:Thanks, Intel... (Score:5, Insightful)
The economics are pretty simple. Probably some large client like Goldman Sachs or a similarly sized outfit wants to run Linux on laptops and told Intel to get their act together.
Re:From ipw2100_main.c (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, sometimes explaining what a variable means and then using just a one letter name is much more helpful than names like "thisOneINeedToDoThisBecauseOfThat".
Just think of the use of "i" in for loops, no one in the right set of mind would use something like "loopCounter".
It's a bit like in PDE theory, if you use t, then you don't have to bother specifying that t belongs to [0,T] and that it's time - everyone expects that.
not excited (Score:4, Insightful)
When I purchased my X31 from IBM a year ago, instead of going for a wireless option, I bought the machine "wireless rdy" and put in my own linux compatible prism2 minipci card, purchased off ebay. Because of this incident, I will certainly stay away from purchasing any item from intel where linux support is promised in the near future.
Hopefully companies like Intel will start to realize that Desktop Linux is here and people who are decision makers & influencer's in IT make up a significant portion of the desktop linux populous.
Re:From ipw2100_main.c (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite, but if you're choosing decent variable names, you would never think of chooseing loopCounter!
What are you counting? That's what the variable name should be.
Iterating over rows in a matrix (or whatever)? then the variable name should be 'row'! Not rowCount or RowNumber or count or r, simply 'row'.
Then row++ makes sense - next row.
Re:Thanks, Intel... (Score:2, Insightful)
Intel is also responsible for Linux ACPI, EFI, and all of the modern Intel chipset support -- including AGP, SATA, etc, and NIC drivers. I think they also do the XFree drivers for their graphics chipsets.
Compare this to NVidia (100% binary) or VIA/SIS/etc (reverse engineering by Linux devs, many bugs), and Intel is really THE top notch Linux hardware vendor. Too bad they get flamed so hard by the AMD fanboy cross-over crowd.
Re:Thanks, Intel... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open Source Driver + Firmware (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you consider Linux closed-source because on most hardware it requires a closed-source BIOS or firmware in order to boot?
(Yes, I know about LinuxBIOS. It supports a subset of x86 hardware)
Re:Open source? (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhere you need to draw a line, and having firmware is nothing wrong but in fact often just necessary.
Re:Thanks, Intel... (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument is that Intel might demonstrate that releasing the source for something does not cause you to go out of business tomorrow.
The problem I have with Centrinos WLAN... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Open source? (Score:3, Insightful)
No specs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Quote from the first page at http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]:
This project was created by Intel to enable support for the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 (IPW2100) mini PCI adapter. This project is intended to be a community effort as much as is possible given some working constraints (mainly, no HW documentation is available) (Emphasis mine)
So in Intel's own words, they did not release the specs, and I can't find anything on the site that says different...
Inspiring (Score:2, Insightful)
Has there been an instance of this before? OEMs don't usually endorse open source dev projects for their hardware, but if more OEMs did do this then we'd see a huge amount of support for devices that are currently not compatible with various operating systems, and an extended development life for drivers for aging hardware. Obviously this method applies to not only "classic" open source OS's such as Linux, but Windows as well. After all, the OEM isn't selling the drivers, it's selling the hardware and firmware.
I'd love to see more manufacturers posting the source to their drivers and the developer documentation to allow their drivers to be improved and worked on by the willing open source community at large, while the OEM maintains endorsement and ownership of the developed software. It seems to me this method harms nobody and benefits all.
No Tresspassing! (Score:3, Insightful)