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Wireless Networking Intel Hardware

LinuxAnt's DriverLoader Loads Centrino Drivers 302

Posted by timothy from the look-ma dept.
cRueLio writes "The latest release of Linuxant's DriverLoader can now load Centrino drivers. This is very useful, because Intel has been resisting the release of Linux Centrino drivers. For those of you who don't know, DriverLoader is practically a wrapper for Windows wireless drivers."
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LinuxAnt's DriverLoader Loads Centrino Drivers More

LinuxAnt's DriverLoader Loads Centrino Drivers

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  • Mirror just in case that server (which seems piddly) gets /.'ed:

    LINUXANT RELEASES NEW DRIVERLOADER(TM) FOR INTEL CENTRINO, INTERSIL, BROADCOM, ATHEROS, AND OTHER WIRELESS LAN DEVICES

    MONTREAL, QC Oct. 27, 2003 - Linuxant inc., a world-class supplier of consulting, software development and professional support services is announcing the immediate availability of DriverLoader(TM) 1.2, a revolutionary compatibility-wrapper allowing standard Windows NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) drivers sh

  • Why would Intel deny Linux of Centrino drivers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:39PM (#7383822)
    What is Intel thinking?
    Why would it be in their interest to do so?
    Intel should just be happy selling as many chips as possible.
    Is Microsoft strong arming Intel yet again?

    • Re:Why would Intel deny Linux of Centrino drivers? (Score:5, Informative)

      by CaptBubba ( 696284 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:43PM (#7383859)
      According to Intel [intel.com] the real drivers are "in development" for the wireless chipset. Rumored release is in the first half of 2004.
      • I think that could mean the LinuxAnts efforts. They probably heard about the development - perhaps they have given them their binary drivers - and put the positive information on their page.
      • In other words, Linux is like a second run cinema. You get to see the film eventually, but only after the distributors have made their money elsewhere.

        Perhaps Linux would improve the situation dramatically if it had a standardized (as in LSB) method for installing, uninstalling, signing, downloading and QA testing binary drivers which were guaranteed to work with any version of a major release, e.g. 2.4.x.

        Aside from a few masochists who insist everything should be patched into their kernel and rebuilt,

        • NVIDIA (Score:3, Informative)

          by Ender Ryan ( 79406 )
          The difference is simply that NVIDIA has competent driver writers. NVIDIA has a binary driver, with a very small source-based wrapper, and they wrote a simple installer that handles building it.

          Their Linux driver is based on their Windows driver, and shares 90%+ of the same code.

          OTOH, that's not to say that you don't have a valid point, distributing binary drivers for Linux could definately be easier. I think that "problem" has been ignored so far because a lot of kernel developers don't want to encou

          • Re:NVIDIA (Score:3, Interesting)

            by DrXym ( 126579 )
            The difference is simply that NVIDIA has competent driver writers. NVIDIA has a binary driver, with a very small source-based wrapper, and they wrote a simple installer that handles building it.

            I would assume that most manufacturers have competant driver writers and they'd be made more competant if they weren't required to reinvent the wheel each time. The case of NVidia is interesting. It's good they offer drivers, but they are a major pain to obtain to obtain and require you have a clue about shell scr

    • I just have a bad feeling that some jackass company is going to make some spurious DMCA claim that the driver were licensed only for use under windows and using them in linux in any form is some kinda non-existent copyright violation.

      I vaguely recall in the annals of history of being something similar to this happening but i just cant put my finger on it.
    • Intel doesn't even provide the Centrino PRO/Wireless drivers for Windows for download. It's up to the Centrino manufacturers to provider the drivers.

  • windows drivers (Score:4, Funny)

    by joe_bruin ( 266648 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:40PM (#7383833) Homepage Journal
    awesome. now linux too can have buggy drivers!

    gotta wonder, did they implement the bluescreen feature?

    • Re:windows drivers (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Quarters ( 18322 )
      Your statement is funny because everyone knows that there has never been a faulty or buggy driver written for Linux!

      (rolls eyes)

    • Re:windows drivers (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kasperd ( 592156 )
      did they implement the bluescreen feature?

      Otherwise it is available for download here: bsod.c [daimi.au.dk]. The really great part about this version is, that you can have bluescreen exactly when you want, I for one use it when it is about time to go to bed.
    • xscreensaver has bluescreens, amiga crashes, sad apples, kernel panics, and more goodies! More importantly, your crashes won't disturb others.
    • now linux too can have buggy drivers!

      I don't understand this. If the vendor puts out buggy Windows drivers why would their native Linux drivers be any better? Why would it matter whether it's an NDIS driver or something native to Linux? I presume you're a grown-up and it has occurred to you that contemporary hardware vendors will not generally provide sufficient technical information for Open Source developers to do better (but that's just me trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and I could be w

  • why (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Roryking ( 646378 ) <theroryking@@@sbcglobal...net> on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#7383840) Journal
    Why do hardware manufacturers not release drivers for Linux (or for that matter any other non-Windows/Macintosh platform)? It would seem that the idea would be, more supported plaforms = wider customer base = more profit. I can understand how development might be an issue... but considering OS'es like Linux are open source, it would seem that development would be at least marginally easier and cheaper. Has anyone written/emailed/asked a HW maker this question? What was their reply?

    • Re:why (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stubear ( 130454 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:45PM (#7383865)
      You're forgetting the part of the equation that deals with development time = drain on profits and if this drain > profits then it's not worth investing the development time.

      • Re:why (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:54PM (#7383901)
        In addition to which you have to remember that it is impossible to realease up to date binary drivers for linux without having to constantly maintain 100 different versions for all the different kernel builds by Redhat/Suse/Mandrake/etc (forget about gentoo, slack or custom kernels). The only way hardware manufacturers could get out of that pain is by releasing the source for their drivers which many are hesitant to do. The module versioning issue is really a pain compared to say windows where a vendor can release drivers that he knows will pretty much work across multiple versions of windows. I think this has got to be holding driver development for linux back.

        • Re:why (Score:2, Informative)

          by rfmobile ( 531603 )
          "The module versioning issue is really a pain compared to say windows where a vendor can release drivers that he knows will pretty much work across multiple versions of windows."
          I can see you've never written a device driver for Windows. Microsoft DDK (device driver kits) are specific to each Windows version. Subsequent versions almost always break something.
          -rick

          • Re:why (Score:2, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            So what. There are about 6 version of Windows. There are countless versions of Linux kernels in different distros or custom ones.

        • Re:why (Score:2, Insightful)

          by yanos ( 633109 )
          it is impossible to realease up to date binary drivers for linux without having to constantly maintain 100 different versions for all the different kernel builds

          why is that so? it's been a few years that nvidia does so.
        • The only way hardware manufacturers could get out of that pain is by releasing the source

          Why is this?

          My experience causes me to disagree with you. By me NVidia has done just fine by releasing the "source code"" that wraps around their pre-compiled gfx binary drivers.

          In fact, the only time I've had problems with NVidia was when I was using their pre-compiled RPMS they for whatever version X.Y of standard RedHat -- I've always rolled my own.

    • Re:why (Score:5, Insightful)

      by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @11:00PM (#7383927)
      In the case of Linux, the problem is the kernel is an unstable target. A driver written for the 2.2 kernel won't work with the 2.4 kernel. Sometimes even a point release will break compatibility.

      Now factor in that most users aren't going to compile their own kernel and drivers. So you need packaged versions. What distros do you package for? What versions of that distro? It very quickly becomes a lot to maintain for little benefit.

      As to other OS's, they've got such small userbases it isn't worth the effort.

      What should happen is companies should just release documentation on the hardware when appropriate. I can somewhat understand NVidia and ATI's reluctance, but someone like a network card vendor shouldn't care.

      My biggest gripe is companies that change the chipset on a product without changing the model number. Sometimes it makes it really difficult to ensure you're getting hardware that works outside of windows - or that it meets your needs.

      • You forget (Score:5, Insightful)

        by OeLeWaPpErKe ( 412765 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @11:26PM (#7384038) Homepage
        As soon as they release the source, the community maintains it. Try that with windows drivers.

      • Re:why (Score:2)

        by Malc ( 1751 )
        Point releases? Can't APIs be frozen?

      • Re:why (Score:2)

        by anto ( 41846 )
        If you try and maintain *binary* compatibility then yes the kernel is a horrible beast to slay. If however you choose to release the source to your driver it will pretty much work for a whole kernel tree - as a bonus if it breaks someone will have a patch to you before you even open the doors to your shiny fab plant the next morning.

        -- This comment brought to you by too much happiness at the Melbourne Cup 2003..
      • Or you can simply release the code to a linux driver under a GPL compatible license and the various distributions will do the binary creation and distribution for you, free of charge even.

      • Re:why (Score:2, Insightful)

        by frohike ( 32045 )

        In the case of Linux, the problem is the kernel is an unstable target. A driver written for the 2.2 kernel won't work with the 2.4 kernel. Sometimes even a point release will break compatibility.

        Now factor in that most users aren't going to compile their own kernel and drivers. So you need packaged versions. What distros do you package for? What versions of that distro? It very quickly becomes a lot to maintain for little benefit.

        In the case of Windows, the problem is the OS is an unstable target.

      • Re:why (Score:2)

        by isj ( 453011 )
        You forget how nvidia and vmware handles this. They provide their drivers as two parts: one binary closed-source part, and one source wrapper. This allows them to provide their driver as binary only, and let the wrapper be compiled to fit the kernel.
        And if you are running a well-known kernel then the driver bundle includes the source part precompiled so you do not even need a compiler. NVidia even uses the same binary part for their drivers for windows and linux (ok, possibly compiled with different compile

  • Free?...or not? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Scalli0n ( 631648 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#7383841) Homepage
    DriverLoader packages can be downloaded from Linuxant's web site at no cost*.

    * Linuxant is happy to provide free trial DriverLoader licenses, while discussions are under way with hardware vendors to finance development costs. Linuxant hopes that DriverLoader will remain free for end-users.

    Interesting. I'd hope that they get some money so that we can keep enjoying this, but at the same time, the words 'trial' and 'licenses' worry me a little. Been spending too much time GNU!

  • Wonderful. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by base3 ( 539820 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#7383844)
    Now hardware vendors can blow off developing drivers for Linux. "Just download the wrapper and use the Win32 driver."

    • yeah, that was my first thought. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @11:07PM (#7383952) Homepage Journal
      Now hardware vendors can blow off developing drivers for Linux. "Just download the wrapper and use the Win32 driver."

      Yes, I hate the use of non-free drivers. They are buggy and don't get fixed or ported to new kernels. How Linuxant has managed to deal with the differnces between different versions of Windoze is beyond me. I got suckered into buying a wireless card with "Linux support". It tured out to have a binary module for a particular Red Hat kernel that was not easy to compile with my kernel version. It really sucked and I ended up just giving up.

      If you think of this as a short term solution to the Microsoft monopoly problem you can smile. Hardware vendors can slip Linuxant specs on the side to make their card work. Linux ditributors can compile the wrapper to work with the correct kernel. What this means is that Microsoft can't punish hardware vendors for giving out information, because they won't know! The "careful dance" vendors have had to do is over. Wireless card makers won't have to worry about their card having "problems" on windoze platorms from the latest windoze "update". Once that happens, there will be no further need for the nasty windoze binaries. Hardware makers will then be able to compete on the basis of what their hardware does, not what M$ wants to "support".

      Congratulations to Linuxant.

      Fuck you Microsoft, you are circumvented.

      • That was the first thought about 5 years ago when we at a linux meeting were talking about this idea.

        We canned it for 2 reasons...

        1) Hardware vendors will not write drivers for Linux because use the windows one!

        2) NDIS API was copyrighten by M$. Did it get released?
      • I had roughly the same problem with a Lexmark Printer/Concord Digital Camera combo I picked up at Walmart. I was super excited to see linux support on the side of the box.

        Turns out, a. the support was binary only and would not be updated for future versions of linux: Redhat 7 or 8 only please b. the support is for the printer only, even though there's nothing on the package to indicate this.

        I spent a week sending plaintive emails to Concord asking them to live up to their packaging to no avail. Finally
      • I had mentioned this earlier when this topic of binary wrappers came up, and i was told i was nuts..

        I guess now that we actually see the ramifications ' why bother makding a driver for OS xyz ' its not so cool afterall...
      • Suppose microsoft adds some sort of requirement to it's WHQL certification that makes it unable to work with DriverLoader? That would mean Microsoft is screwing us all over again.
      • Did you try the modules that came with the kernel? I once got a linksys card like that - but the driver for it ('tulip') had been integrated into the main source tree, so I didn't need the old 2.2 driver.
    • Your forgetting that most hardware vendors were NEVER going to provide hardware drivers in the first place. So what's more useful? A)Sitting around complaining that most hardware vendors continue to ignore linux even after years of asking for support or B) trying to work with what's available and provide support for hardware that currently doesn't work with linux?

      Whining that this somehow is going to make porting linux drivers less likely completely ignores that fact that Linux drivers were never coming in
      • If Adobe, for instance, sees that a lot (10k or so) people are using Photoshop in Linux, they'll consider porting when there's competition. They'll realize that people in Linux are using their product, but that it may stop because a native program (with better performance and interface) is coming out. If nobody used Photoshop in Linux though, they'd never know it was a graphics platform, or that there was a market share to lose.

        There are actually a ton of art shops using Linux, mostly (in my experience) to
    • Most vendor-released drivers are pretty bad, even when they bother to provide them. It's almost always better to have kernel hackers write drivers than get the hardware vendor to do it, anyway. Using a Win32 driver is a reasonable stopgap while native drivers are under development, if you've got some hardware that's not supported. In fact, if you're going to use vendor-supplied code, you might as well use a Win32 driver, since it's a fixed API that the vendor is likely familiar with, so they're less likely

      • Most drivers are bad, vendor-released or not. Only the popular Linux drivers are really well-written; some of the others are horrible. When I say popular, I mean popular among developers and the companies that pay them, not necessarily among the general user base. Examples of bad drivers:

        • ide-tape is a joke and ide-cd has major limitations. It turns out that you're better off mapping ATAPI to SCSI using ide-scsi and then using SCSI device class drivers (which is the approach NT takes too). Why do the ATAP

        • ide-cd has major limitations. It turns out that you're better off mapping ATAPI to SCSI using ide-scsi and then using SCSI device class drivers.

          FYI, this has been fixed in 2.6. ide-cdrom has much better performance now, and has a sufficiently-complete ATAPI implementation that it can be used for writing, so the ide-scsi workaround is no longer necessary.

  • Seems to work for many.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by elemur ( 7613 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @10:41PM (#7383846)
    I've been trying to get this working for a day or two without too much luck, but others on the mailing list are reporting success.

    One good and important point.. yes, its using binary windows drivers, but they are trying to keep the whole project open source. They are going to hardware vendors who would otherwise like to support Linux, but don't want to port their code to a new architecture. Its a win/win for those who go along with it.

    I've been working on getting the Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 card in my T40 working without too much luck yet, but I think its my local problem. Others report great success with the same card.

    • Re:Seems to work for many.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by skaffen42 ( 579313 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @11:01PM (#7383930)
      Its a win/win for those who go along with it.

      I would have thought it was more a case of win/linux for those who go along with it. :)

      Ouch. Did I actually just make a joke that lame?

    • except of course for the users, because those vendors would have eventually made native ports fo their drivers and now never will.
  • Add an easy point and click way to setup ACPI and I could get rid of Windows on my laptop!
    Oh wait, I did anyway. Not because I thought Linux worked better but because I hate Windows.
    • Oh wait, I did anyway. Not because I thought Linux worked better but because I hate Windows.

      And why did you feel the need to tell us this? Switching OSes out of blind hatred is supposed to be good or l33t somehow?
      • No need really. Neither good nor l33t. Enough to make you waste your time bitching.
        Anyway, this is really cool for wireless in Linux.
      • Switching OSes out of blind hatred is supposed to be good or l33t somehow?

        With windows it's usually not blind hatred, it's hatred from close and intimate knowledge and experience.

        I have Win XP on my laptop (couldn't buy without) but never use it. So some minor hardware stuff doesn't quite work right on linux, big deal. All the software works, I can get work done, while windows doesn't even ship with a decent text editor or an ssh client. If I'm forced to install cygwin for the most basic tools, I'd r

  • How have they done this? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zaffle ( 13798 ) * on Monday November 03, 2003 @11:11PM (#7383970) Homepage Journal
    I understand they have written a wrapper for the NDIS bindings in Windows, (I think, much the same way Wine is doing for the entire Windows API), but did they need to purchase anything/licenses etc from Microsoft?

    If not, then is it possible to do this as open source, there-by removing the problem of this going commercial (much like Crossover)?

    As I understand it, there is nothing stopping someone from writting a similar product and releasing it under an open source license.

    Is there anything in particular that would stop someone from doing this?

  • I still can't believe the bastards are now charging for full Conexant winmodem support... I use an older version, but no 2.6 support really sucks. Damn you Linuxant, you money-corrupted asshats!

    </rant>

    OK, I'm better now... been having WAAAY too much beer...

  • Development effort (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mjander ( 520676 )
    As someone who has participated in the development of a linux audio driver, and now i'm trying get it ported it to windows, writing drivers for linux is much easier than on windows.

    -At first, there "are" linux developer competent enough. There are many willing to help, and stuff gets done.

    -I still don't know anyone around me who is capable of writing a WDM driver, but i know quite a bunch of people who are writing kernel drivers all the time.

    I guess, we linux (or BSD or what you like) developer should be
    • That's a pretty cool idea. Write a driver developement kit that by design makes the driver work on linux, and windows with an extra component. Just make the devel kit easy to use and understand, and excelerate production time enough that it would be used.

  • linuxant sucks (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @12:04AM (#7384193)
    I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you DriverLoader fanatics? I've been sitting here at a cafe close to my freelance gig sipping a latte in front of a centrino Linux laptop running DriverLoader for about 4 hours now while it attempts to download a 17 kilobyte file from the internet. 4 hours. At home, on my Commodore 64 connecting to the Internet using a modem with an acoustic coupler connected using a speakerphone across the room, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this laptop, the same operation would take about 30 minutes. If that.

    In addition, during this file transfer, Mozilla won't work. And my latte has gone cold waiting for a ssh session to negotiate. Even ed over a telnet session (unencrypted over wireless! insecure, I know, but I'm desperate) to my C64 running Lunix is straining to keep up as I type this.

    I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Centrino laptops running DriverLoader, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a wirelessly connected centrino laptop that has run faster than its Commodore counterpart with acoustic-coupler speakerphone wireless, despite the Centrino's faster chip architecture. My Atari 2600 with 128 bytes of ram with avian carrier RFC1149 wireless runs faster than this centrino machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the LinuxLoader is a superior piece of software.

    LinuxAnt addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use DriverLoader over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

    • Ah, I see. A data point of 1. Very statistically robust. Perhaps if you try it on different wlans AND try the same coffee shop wlan on another day AND get the same crap results in all cases then you may have something there. You are perhaps too fast to blame the driver rather than the network. Come back when you have more data points.

  • Which wireless hardware works with Free Software? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @12:20AM (#7384274) Homepage

    For those of us who want only Free Software, what wireless hardware works with Free Software drivers?

    • Just about any 802.11b hardware; it's the a/b/g stuff that doesn't have Linux drivers available (typically due to FCC regs not permitting release of programming specs for software radios which can be programmed to use bands they legally shouldn't be on -- which the a/b/g cards are).
    • I have a LifeBook P-2120, which has a built-in Prism 2.5 chipset. Works fine with the orinoco_pci kernel module. I would've bought a Centrino notebook, but I didn't want to wait for a Linux driver, and, frankly, I don't see a binary driver wrapper as a good solution that I would trust. The P-2120 works fine for me and gives me five hours with its extended battery (even more with the modular bay battery).
    • I feel so... dirty... for saying this, but:

      I finally ended up with a Microsoft MN-520 [microsoft.com] Prism card and the WLAN-NG drivers.

      I live in a smallish town where the hardware vendor with the largest selection is Office Max. I bought, literally, 5 NICs over the course of a week. All were either unsupported (usually Broadcom chipsets) or required a newer OS than would run comfortably on the little laptop I was using. The Microsoft kit ($70 for a base station and one PCMCIA NIC) just worked out of the box.

      I te

  • Happy customer (Score:4, Informative)

    by aralin ( 107264 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @12:21AM (#7384277)
    I have to say, that although binary, these drivers are very good. I am using them on my notebook and they just work. I had a little problem with 1.03 version, but since 1.20 they work very good. These people know what they are doing, they have download for every current kernel used in major versions of major distributions. And they want to provide that for free if the manufacturers chip in for their effort. I welcome that my internal wireless card is working NOW and not in 2004. Thank you, Linuxant.

  • Reverse Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Markus Registrada ( 642224 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @12:23AM (#7384284)
    This is a Good Thing. Running the Windows driver in a wrapper on Linux makes it much easier to reverse-engineer. Anything discovered that way is free of vendors' non-disclosure agreements. This applies to lots of drivers, and lots of manufacturers, not just Intel and Centrino.

  • Don't use for Intersil or Atheros (Score:4, Informative)

    by linefeed0 ( 550967 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @01:04AM (#7384430)
    The Intersil PrismGT [prism54.org] chipset used in low-end 802.11g cards from Netgear/SMC/D-Link (not the turbo 108 variety), and the Atheros 5k [sf.net] family used in almost all turbo 108 mbps 802.11g cards and nearly all 802.11a cards have good native linux drivers which are either entirely or have the most significant parts as open source.

    Although the DriverLoader apparently supports these cards, please support these companies in either helping develop Linux driver support or releasing specifications (both of which Intel and Broadcom adamantly refuse to do) by

    a) purchasing their products when you have a choice (e.g. buy Pentium-M instead of Centrino and add on a third-party wireless card, and don't buy 802.11g products from Linksys or Dell which use Broadcom), and

    b) Use the open-source drivers rather than emulating windows drivers, let the chip (Atheros and Globespan/Virata nee Intersil) and the card companies know that you appreciate their linux support. Report bugs and feedback to the open source projects, too.

    It's nice to have something like this around as a stopgap way to load drivers for hardware made by manufacturers with poor linux support, and even as a way for manufacturers to ship initial drivers for linux inexpensively for them (and claim "linux support out of the box"), but it is no substitute for published specs and real drivers (which, with published specs, the companies don't even have to develop themselves).

    • ...buy Pentium-M instead of Centrino...
      Pentium-M and Centrino are one and the same.
      • The Centrino is a kit comprised of the Pentium-M, the 855 chipset and the PRO/Wireless 2100 MiniPCI card... My bad ;)
        I still think, however, that the statement I commented on sounds "wrong" ;)
    • I have an Atheros A/B/G PCI card, and I can say that the Madwifi drivers for this card just aren't ready for prime time - go read the various messages about this card if you don't believe me.

      The drivers will crash the kernel, will sometimes simply stop working after a while, and when they are working, they do not transfer data anywhere near the theoretical limits of the card.

      The card "sort of" work to access an access point, but if you want to use them to create an access point they just don't work in my

  • Beware Linuxant! The future goes from bad to worse (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @01:38AM (#7384555) Homepage Journal
    Linuxant has a short and torrid history in the Linux driver scene. They pretty well burst onto the scene after Marc Boucher got the rights from Conexant to develop kernel drivers for their HSF/HCF chipsets. Users enjoyed a couple years of very well supported drivers (apparently with the manufacturer's financial backing) until about two months ago when Linuxant "announced" their new and improved version of the HCF/HSF modem driver.

    Guess what? They decided that development costs were too great and thus, they charge for it now. On top of that they removed all prior free releases of the driver (which worked just fine for all but some of the newest cards and/or some of the more esoteric modem features) from their website. There was no warning for this change, and they began sending marketing emails to their driver -announce list.

    With this kind of history, I am wary of supporting any kind of use of their windows-driver wrappers for wireless cards. I am wary that I or my users will grow to rely on these drivers and then have the rug pulled from under our feet. I am wary that hardware manufacturers will grow indifferent to providing native Linux drivers while this product is available and works well. When the time comes that you have to fork out an extra $40 to Linuxant.

    Please be aware that I am not opposed to Linuxant marketing their products commercially. It has been my experience that they produce very good work and code that does what it says. It's a shame that the hardware manufacturers cannot seem to support their work financially, as I believe it is in the manufacturers' best interests to see that their hardware works with a wide variety of software and operating systems. For Linuxant not to be up front about this matter is pretty low-brow.

    The similarities to their namesake are striking... Linuxant: Keeping the business ideals of Conexant alive and well in the Linux community!

    ~GoRK

  • Performance? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jahf ( 21968 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @02:00AM (#7384607) Journal
    Anyone used these wrappers to say what type of performance they can achieve?

    For instance, just putting traffic through a or NAT routine can take up to 10% speed hit if you have no other significant bottlenecks. Yeah, I know, my example isn't apples-to-apples, it's just meant to give an example of a performance hit.

    I would imagine a wrapper, even for a completely bug-free alien driver, would have some form of performance degradation and/or extra CPU usage or both.

    As a side note, I too am very afraid that this will further stifle linux native device driver support from commercial outfits.

  • Heh... I can see the "real" press release now... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @02:00AM (#7384610) Homepage
    Dear Intel,

    ...(half a page of empty space)...

    pwned.

    ...(half a page of empty space)...

    Sincerely,

    the Linuxant team.

  • Good Linux Hacking (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tintruder ( 578375 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @02:08AM (#7384632)
    Yesterday I got called a M$ Troll for comments on hacking an AP to put Linux on it.

    But when I see something as useful as this, I have to hand it to the developers.

    Now a whole family of contemporary laptops have been rendered fully functional under Linux.

    Fully functional DESPITE THE INTENTIONAL NEGLECT BY THE CORE VENDORS.

    One must wonder why OEM support for Linux is so fragmented; sometimes superb, sometimes completely absent.

    Could it be that the financial aspects of Linux make it less appealing somehow? After all, it would be crazy for Intel et.al. to omit Windows support.

    Good work guys!

  • Intel Driver Support for Wireless (Score:5, Informative)

    by fuzzybunny ( 112938 ) on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @06:49AM (#7385308) Homepage Journal

    I recently wrote a nice letter to Intel about the built-in wifi card on my ThinkPad X31, to ask whether Linux (or FreeBSD! Yay!) drivers would ever be available?

    I got a very friendly response from them:


    Hello John,

    Thank you for contacting Intel(R) Technical Support.

    In order for Linux to run on Intel(R) Centrino(TM) mobile technology-based systems,
    software drivers are needed for the processor, chipset, and 802.11 wireless
    components. Currently Linux drivers are available for the Intel(R) Pentium(R) M
    processor and Intel(R) 855PM and 855GM chipsets. A Linux driver for the Intel(R)
    PRO/Wireless 2100 wireless network connection is currently under development.

    You can check back at the following link for the latest information on Linux driver
    support for the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 network connection.

    http://support.intel.com/support/network/sb/cs-0 06 059-prd38.htm

    Sincerely,
    Roberto G.

    Intel(R) Technical Support
    http://support.intel.com

    Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the
    United States and other countries.

    *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

    ->Hi there,
    ->
    ->I recently bought a Thinkpad X31, after great experiences with an X20.
    ->The only weakness is the lack of Linux/FreeBSD drivers (first thing
    ->I did was netboot FreeBSD and re-format XP off the drive) for the
    ->built in WiFi interface. I know there are currently no plans for these,
    ->but please consider this yet another happy X31 user, who'd love to see
    ->some nice person write a driver.
    ->
    ->Cheers,
    ->
    ->-John

  • Interesting, but... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mwood ( 25379 )
    ...if Intel doesn't want any Linux business, let's just not give them (or their OEMs) any.
  • If DriverLoader could incorporate a lightweight x86 emulator, then it could easily support those chipsets on non-x86 platforms, like PowerBooks, for example, or maybe even Zaurus's (Zauri?), etc. I guess that's kind of a small market, but it would be cool.

    Don't think that's too whacky, either. XFree86 already uses that trick to execute x86 video card BIOS code on non-x86 platforms.

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