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Whither 802.11a in Linux?
Revar asks: "My local net admin recently installed an 802.11a 54Mbps wireless network. Under Windows, the speed is great and at 5Ghz, it has much less interference then the 2.4Ghz 802.11b wireless. The problem is, I cannot seem to find any 802.11a PCMCIA cards that have Linux or MacOS X support. Are there any, or is no-one actually working on this?" Whenever new hardware is released patience, when wating for Linux support, is a necessary virtue.
WTF,
who modded this up?
Easy to write device drivers! Hmmm, for some prehaps but for most of us it's not. Next time you need a new piece for your car I hope the mechaninc points you to a lathe.
How silly of them to think that the Linux movement actually wants people other than programmers to use the operating system.
It depends on what you mean by "the Linux movement". Sure, everybody wants lots of users. But very few people are interested in signing up to be the personal slaves of people who don't know a one from a zero and would like to stay that way.
A lot of open-source software gets written under the itch-scratching model. I want software to do X, so I write it until I'm happy, and maybe I write a little more because it's fun. Somebody else who wants X+Y writes the Y. But if no programmer wants X+Y+Z, then Z may never get done, no matter how many non-programmers want it.
This isn't meant to be exlusionary. Quite the opposite: a lot of Zs do get written for fun or out of generosity, and I've never dealt with an open-source developer who wasn't immensely welcoming towards those who wanted to learn enough so that they could contribute.
But by and large, the rule is "patches welcome". If you think "the Linux movement" should have better driver support, then you should start writing drivers or assist somebody who can.