Slashdot Mirror
Where To Find Linux 802.11g Support Resources?
Matey-O writes "I just purchased a Linksys firewall/switch router (WAP54g) and two of their 802.11g cards for home use. Like MANY things linux, I found out after the fact that Linksys' 54g products use a different chipset (broadcom) rather than the intersil Prism chipsets of their linux supported 11b products. So my _main_ question is: does anybody know if/when the broadcom chipset will be supported? Google wasn't very helpful, it came up with an online petition to another Broadcom product, but neither Broadcom, not Linksys plan support for linux soon.
My secondary question is: Just where does one go to get info on 'cutting edge' linux development? I've used Linux off and on for years, but never needed to see what was going on this deep into the kernel, nor do I know where to look to see if any development is occurring for this chipset.
(meanwhile, RH8 is dormant on the laptop as the XP support is adequate.)"
The only place to get real up-to-the-minute support for hardware is the many mailing lists dedicated to various projects.
Search google for lists or list plus:
linux-wlan, linux-usb, gatos, v4l
etc...
Main developers for a hardware series have mailing lists. More often than not, you can actually get their attention that way (or at least, get an issue out there).
I have had good success with the linux-wlan mailing lists for doing weird things with wireless cards in the past (granted they were all prism2 cookie-cutter). But the spirit is the same.
What I find is that because creating drivers for devices in linux can be so difficult, you really need a web page dedicated to the task. Because of this, we won't see a central site for driver development. The only centralization happens when they get chosen for bundling with the kernel.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
And this FAQ says "the OneDriver software that ships with AirForce solutions uses the same driver for 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g, so that customers of our 802.11b solution will be able to upgrade to the newer high-speed standards without changing their PCâ(TM)s software image."
Mailing list discussions seem to indicate that there are developers willing to write drivers to support Broadcom chipsets, but Broadcom is not "forthcoming with specs."
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I know for a fact that drivers for these cards DO exist within Broadcom. I participate in the 802.11 committee, and have sat next to a Broadcom employee running linux on "unsupported" broadcom hardware. These drivers are NOT likely to be released by Broadcom. Same goes for some other chipset vendors BTW.
Consensus seems to be that if enough (potential) customers ask the product vendors (in your example, that would be Linksys, NOT Broadcom), they will produce and release drivers for linux, as Linksys has done in the past.
Note that there will probably NEVER be totally open source drivers for these. As software controlled radios, there are FCC issues. I don't pretend to understand all the issues, or agree, but I have been told essentially the same thing by several different engineers working for at least three companies.
I also don't give a rats ass if released drivers contain a closed binary only module for the software radio functions. I just want to be able to use the hardware.
A related question: is anyone working on implementing the 802.1x supplicant code which will be required to support operations using TKIP and/or CCMP, the new ciphers specified in the 802.11i DRAFT? Microsoft has devoted major resources to this, and has promised support for XP and I believe 2000. 802.1x is used for key management and distributed authentication, BTW.
Relevant standards schtuff is here
Note to Slashdot Editors: Bite me. I asked virtually the same question on the 4th of February and you rejected it.
Linksys can't release the specs because they don't own the IP behind the chipset, that would be up to Intersill/whoever they are using this week.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.