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Explaining WLAN Chips' Poor Linux Support
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.
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.
And this won't be an issue
What people need to realize is that nothing in software can be secure. It is far to easy to crack. You may have 100 developers working on a secure WiFi driver, but there are thousands of bored hackers out there waiting to tear it apart. If something needs to be secure, do it in hardware.
On a side note, I've not had any trouble getting my WiFi hardware to work on my slackware laptop, but I understand that some chipsets can be more difficult to setup than others.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
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.
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.
Linux drivers don't come from the Driver Fairy, they usually get written by volunteers. That takes a while: getting the specs, implementing the drivers, testing them, etc. And it usually only happens after the hardware is starting to sell. So, it may well take a year or two for Linux drivers to appear for a piece of hardware. If you want it to happen faster, volunteer yourself.
Of course, a few manufacturers do ship their own Linux drivers. That's nice, but it isn't all that common yet. And many of the drivers that do ship from manufacturers are based on proprietary, commercial driver toolkits and have to be closed source.
Centrino is a special case. Centrino is largely a marketing construct, not a technology, and the marketing group that pushed Centrino inside Intel apparently wants to make Microsoft happy and doesn't like Linux. I doubt this is going to last: Linux is too important for Intel to maintain this position.
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. Listen to a baby cry over your neighbors' baby monitor.
2. Neighbor humping a lover in front of their baby monitor
3. Transmitting "Hey, that's my wife; I'm going to blow your balls off!"
4. Watch them scatter
The only real leverage that anyone has is only buying products that have explicit Linux support from the OEM.
with 2.4Ghz ISM wireless network stuff, anyway... on the manufacturing & design side...
:
This is something I hadn't thought of in terms of software. I mean, if you make, say, a wireless router, there are various laws you have to follow to get approval in various places.. things like
The antenna connector has to be non-standard. This is why you'll see like, a TNC conenctor with the threads reversed, or the gender parts half swapped, etc. It's so consmers don't hook it up to amplifiers and things.. or rather, so they understand that they are not supposed to. The same goes for software functions.. there are many functions accessible in the software that would allowt eh device to operate outside of the allowabloe parameters, but we had to keep those hidden & inaccessible. If they were presented to the customer, the customer woudl be able to violate FCC just by using commands we supplied them.
So.. I never considered that with regards to linux drivers.. but it is a good point.
Many of the chipset makers feel that their 'drivers' are also their IP. In the wireless space, the first to market folks get to make the rules. In the case of 802.11a, Atheros was the first to market. There existed a 'binary only' driver that was built on a mandrake linux box. The bad news is the way it was built made it completely useless. I've not heard of anyone having sucuess using it. Rumor has it that Atheros built this driver & they would release 'formal' drivers for their chipsets. This hasn't happened yet. I doubt it will until they have somebody else providing 802.11a chipsets. To them, it's about getting market share & protecting IP.
Recent developments:
Reyk Floeter has started building a GPL driver. It's amusing based on the context of this article, because all this driver can do is SNIFF. That's right, RX Only. Progress has been very slow, and there have been several questions to the list as to how this driver exists, and how it's being built. It would seem that Reyk doesn't have any of the specs & hasn't signed an NDA. I assume he's reverse engineering the windows drivers, but he hasn't stated as much. The development progress has been _VERY_ slow, and this project needs help from OSS devs. Anyone up for a challenge?
Intellegraphics signed the NDA, and has a driver 'for sale'.
While the government has it's paws in everything, I doubt this is the case at this point. This whole article is based on FUD.
That's all. -Eric Johanson, SeattleWireless
Though this whole thing seems silly to me anyways. Why don't the broadband chipset makers just provide the specs on how to load a binary firmware. I'm using it right now in order to use my cheap USB<-Serial adapter, I'm certain thatproviding a binary firmware isn't going to upset anyone other than the most hardcore GPL only people.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
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?
I have been buying 802.11 cards like crazy trying to find one that will work well with Linux for mobile self-propelled linux boxes.
WHat I have found is that almost all the new cards out there, brand name, no name, etc, are based on the broadcom chip, for which there is no driver.
Now it's true that there are wierd FCC rules, such as the one that the antenna connectors must be proprietary, as if that makes a difference, but that doesn't explain certain things.
For instance, the SMC, Siemens, and Linksys cards all USED to work. The new cards from these vendors, such as the Linksys WPC11, don't work, but have the SAME MODEL NUMBER even though they are entirely different cards. They all give the same codes or similar when inserted, they all have similar antenna shapes, they all have two dimples in the bottom of the antenna where one dimple has a bump from the injection molder.
Now, the only difference I can see on the BOX between the old and the new ones is that the new ones mention Windows XP. So, can it be that MS would only support chipsets with proprietary specs? It sure looks that way. I really can't understand why multiple vendors would completely change the card and keep the same model number. This makes no sense. I think it's as simple as not supporting linux compatible hardware in each release of windows. Not so far fetched, how many product boxes do you see that even MENTION linux? You're not gonna get that 'designed for windows XP' logo if you don't do as you're told.
Now, the older cards work just fine, I have a prism card and it's great. Problem is I only have one, which serves no purpose at all. ALso, aparantly the Netgear card DOES work, but not well, under linux, and Cisco's Aironets are supposed to work fine, though they cost twice as much and I'll gladly pay, but I have yet to find a retail channel for these (help)
So I've bought six different types of cards ranging in price from $49 to $79 and they are ALL broadcom products. You can see the similarities in the physical construction of the card as soon as you take it out of the box. Slight differences in antenna shape, but always with the broadcommy squareness.
Also, you can order parts real cheap and configure them to put out a carrier on any frequency you want, so this really sounds like baloney. Not that it isn't the reason they're giving, but it isn't the reason. We're talking about less than 0.1 watt here. If the military doesn't like the signal they can just move to the livingroom. Seems to block it just fine from my experience.
So I have an awesome little laptop robot and I can only control it from windows or mac and I have another one that I haven't even bothered with because I can't operate them at the same time.
I don't feel very free to innovate.
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.
Most of these cards have internal restrictions (such as firmware) preventing out-of-band operation. At least Prisms do.
Even with wide-open drivers, I don't think you can force most Prism cards out-of-band because the firmware restricts it. (Which sucks, because all it takes is a 55-question multiple choice test and you can legally run 802.11 cards out of the ISM band and at much higher powers - The 2.4 GHz amateur (ham) band is adjacent to the ISM band, and many cards can be reclassified under Part 97 rules.)
What I would love to see is open specs for a cable modem chipset - it would make a perfect exciter for an amateur data network if combined with a transverter.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
People, come on, RTFA, ok?
This is not about 802.11b, it's about 802.11g, the newer standard. The one that can do 54 Mbps? Look arround for drivers for those chipsets (mostly Broadcom or Intel's). You'll find none. Why? Because these things can be programmed to receive *and* transmit on any frequency. Any. That inclues military frequencies. Building a receiver for any frequency is not rocket science. In fact it's boring since it's well known. The problem is that the FCC has to approve this things. The vendor builds it and they have to get approval from the FCC to market it. If the FCC catches word that the vendor is giving the specs to a bunch of hippies, the hardware might not get approved (nothing to do with the FCC per se, it's just politics). The problem is some people out there are _very_ willing to go on a disrupt police communications. And what could be easier that just taking a laptop on a car and just war drive. It gives a whole new meaning to the term, doesn't it?
Some people (RTFA) have proposed solutions, basically signed frequency tables, but since the hardware is out, it's too fscking late. That's going to be in the next gen hardware, but not in the current round. By the look of it, 802.11g on Linux is screwed for the time being.
It's all about the money. People seem to be unwilling to accept that Linux is such a tiny segment of users, that it is simply not worth the effort for a hardware manufacturer to develop a Linux driver, let alone multiple drivers for Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, Gentoo, Debian, etc. with kernel versions 2.4.1, 2.4.8, 2.4.12, 2.4.18, 2.4.21 etc.
These same poeple also refuse to see that the chip manufacturers make their money by selling the chips and the software that drives them. Releasing the chip specs, in many manufacturer's minds, gives their competition an advatage because said competition will have access to the specs too. Theoretically, the competition could then build a similar chip for less or even a better chip without as much expenditure for R&D.
Regardless of the truth on this matter there is simply no economic incentive for the manufacturer to release the specs. It has nothing to do with military secrets or national security or anything else, it is simply a matter of economics. But, all is not lost. As Linux continues to grow and its "market share" increases the economic incentive will increase for manufacturers to develop the drivers or release the specs.
All the rest (configuration files, etc.) is just distribution-related fluff.
I needed a new router/firewall/AP, I bought the linksys g product, a couple of G cards, spent an afternoon looking for Broadcom support in linux and pitched Redhat for WXp as a result.
That laptop is mostly used for surfing the web and rdesktopping into other computers, I'd most likely put RH8 (9) BACK on it if Broadcom's g set was supported.
I can't be the only person that WANTS this. (and I DID lobby Broadcom and Linksys for driver support)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Maybe they aren't limiting the broadcast characteristics in firmware on the broadcomm G cards because they don't have a final spec yet and they are trying to keep the device/chipset as open as posisble so they can adapt to new changes in the specs if need be. I just wish that I could get it to work on my damn linux box cause right now I am running in mixed mode on my home wireless network.
ZiN
-ZiN-
Proxim let a developer take a library written by them custom for him that allows him certain functions that he needs, it works with pcmcia, isa and pci cards. he just wrote a wrapper around this library and has no access to the internal workings of the actual chipset to protect their details for security I suppose. Maybe he can help someone find the way with these new chip makers since he worked out a deal with another company that was not going to release the internal details. From what I gathered from back when I used one, they built him the library and gave him the headers.
His source code distribution with prebuilt library is at:
http://www.komacke.com/distribution.html
I was able to use it for my laptop with a pcmcia card, my smp machine with pci card and pentium with an isa card on 2.2 and 2.4 kernels so the method obviously will work.
I like the thought of suing companies for trespassing on my private property with their private radio transmissions.
:)
I want to the FCC to made all radio signals private property so I can sue every radio station, police station, local TV, my neighbor and her noisy telephone, etc.
Hey, maybe we can declare all audio and electromagnetic transmissions private property so if you say something that offends me I can sue you, if it trespasses into my ear.
I think we should make a set of laws so everyone can sue everyone else. Then just sit back and watch the people line up outside the courthouse. Maybe we could make our legal system a profitable marketplace where you can purchase a new law to help you sue for more money, at a fair price, of course.
There are potentially serious issues with 5 GHz. WLAN technologies and military radar avoidance. This is the case in both the U.S. and Europe. The IEEE is working on mechanisms to dynamically avoid these conflicts. I can understand why it could be bad to allow anybody out there with one of these devices to twiddle the knobs as they could cause serious problems. This doesn't, in my mind, rule out binary drivers.
I recently picked up a Sony Z1A with Centrino wireless built in. Its a great laptop though I'm still figuring out all the Linux stuff for it. I gave up on linux support for wireless after figuring out that the windows drivers don't even work well. They're great UNLESS you have other networks in the area.
For example, I have my home wireless network and my neighbor also has one that my laptop picks up. Because Centrino is "smart" enough to be "seamless" across networks, 5 minutes after connecting to my own network, windows lets me know that there are other networks available, prompts me to look at them, AND cuts off the current network connection!
Essentially the network connection must be reset every 4-5 minutes because it is being "smart" and cutting service at the sign of another provider.
I made it to a Sony Engineer (for fun) and they had no possible solution. I really just want to tell the network driver and/or built in windows wireless software to hold onto a network connection once its established... but NOOOOO, it wants to ask me to look at more and drops me from my current network.
The Sony guy tried to tell me that it would be okay. Riiiight, since I can't do anythign (IM, ftp, etc) that takes longer than 5 minutes to complete.
And this is in Windows...
unf.