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Explaining WLAN Chips' Poor Linux Support

Posted by timothy on from the holding-the-reins dept.

morcheeba writes "Kernel Traffic is reporting (mirror mirror list) that 'Some WLAN Chip Specs Secret To Protect Military Communications.' While this is stretching it a bit -- these radios are generally limited to a narrow frequency range and few modulation types -- software can cause illegal radio operation, especially when the laws vary by country. Is Linux support for 802.11g and Centrino chipsets going to be delayed by manufacturers afraid of FCC harassment? An interesting discussion on the future of Openness in radio chipsets." Interesting comments from Alan Cox in here about just how flexible some of these chips are.

9 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. I thought it was just about money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If 95%+ of your market will be Windows users, it might make financial sense to just worry about that 95% and develop support for them.

  2. prism2 only! by drwho · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I am not the only one unhappy with the very poor support of linux by many wifi chip vendors. Intersil seems to be the only one even close to being open, and you have to sign all sorts of agreements to get the specs (legally). My understanding of this is that a lot of the functions are being moved from the chip hardware to system software, so it's not just a device driver required to use these newer cards. Vendors don't want everyone to see their programming.


    The prism2 were the first really popular wireless cards, partly because of low cost but also because of the ability to write drivers for them. I wish other manufacturers wouldn't be so reticent about their support. I actually prefer it if they keep the cards smart and the systems dumb, because it increases portability and compatibility. It probably adds to the cost though.

  3. Time by insecuritiez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I went wireless on my Linux laptop about a year ago the only card I could get supported was the Lucen Orinoco. It's a great card. But now, many months later there is the WLAN project and many many cards are supported. The future will be the same. More support is coming. The major problem I see though is the manufaturers. They write drivers for windows. Most of them arn't about to write them for linux. Meaning that every piece of hardware will be a few months behind while a group of dedicated programers do the dirty work for the company.

    1. Re:Time by insecuritiez · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because the company gets respect and it's name out there amonge a group of power users and frequent buyers. Look at NVidia. They sure get a lot of coverage on Slashdot. Much of this is due to their great Linux drivers. If they made great cards that wern't supported or had poor/shotty support many fewer Slashdot readers would care one witt about what NVidia does. When Apple embraced open source all of a sudden they got a whole second army of geeks following. Why does it make sense to write drivers in support of linux? Because the 5% of the people that will use those products have a lot of influence in a much larger comunity. (IT, business settings)

  4. Why not simply make it illegal to operate? by Fefe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can buy a regular transmitter and modify it to transmit on a forbidden frequency. Does that mean we can't sell transmitters or books telling people how to build one? No!

    I think this is a straw man argument.

    1. Re:Why not simply make it illegal to operate? by alienw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't expect the manufacturer to help you modify it, though. If you want to do that, you would have to reverse-engineer the radio yourself. Then you can do whatever to it. Similarly, if you reverse-engineer a wifi driver, you can write your own. It's just that the manufacturer won't help you.

  5. Re:Promotion? by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How will advocates convince home users (a large chunk of that 95%)

    Home users are not the issue here (and not the largest part of the 95% anyways). Businesses that may have, internally, 99% of their hardware running windows and 1% and growing running something else may choose another manufacturer's product because it supports 100% of thir machines. All you need to loose is one big sale and it would have been worthwhile to pay a developer a few thousand dollars to write a Linux driver. Are you saying companies should give up on trying to maximize profits, and start shooting for 95% instead?

  6. So very true... by GarfBond · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm going to give up mod points here just to chime in, since this is an issue I care about.

    Anyone looking to get good wireless card support (802.11b) should buy one with a prism2 chip or an Orinoco. I know many that have had good luck with these cards, and I know for a fact that the Orinoco cards are essentially plug and play in linux. Do NOT buy the TI chipsets (sometimes marketed as 22mbps 802.11b+) or the Broadcom chipsets; word on the street (heh) is that these companies have been less than forthcoming with specs so people can write proper drivers for them.

    It's too bad that this is the sad state of wireless support in linux, that we must be at the manufacturer's mercy to get our hardware working properly. I've been waiting for 2 years now to get my USB wireless card (oh yeah, avoid those too if you can) working in linux, and it's all because the company doesn't care.

  7. Re:eh by Eneff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh wait, I have an idea!

    Let's require everyone to spend a week learning fundamentals of Unix and 500 bucks and another week putting together OpenBSD-compliant parts (not to mention the day or two researching what exactly will and will not work on BSD) just to give up because they can't figure out why the fuck EverQuest won't work! (Adknowledged, the real problem is that most consumer programs were developed with a direct connection and a modem in mind. Guess what? That's irrelevant.)

    Yeah, sounds REAL swell.

    Yes, Those Netgear and LinkSys boxes are really routers. They really work. Until you can tell me how to get a wireless solution up and running with BSD for an hour's work and under 150 dollars, your argument is irrelevant.