Reverse Engineered 802.11b+ Drivers

orv writes "When Andreas Mohr found that his new wireless networking card wasn't supported under Linux rather than returning the card and getting himself a supported one, he decided to set up a project to write his own drivers instead - http://acx100.sourceforge.net. Companies such as D-Link had initially promised to release linux drivers for these cards but later backed down from that promise and announced that Linux would not be supported and that customers should not hold on to the cards in the hope of getting them working, as shown on their current FAQ. Texas Instruments, the makers of the chipsets upon which these 802.11b+ cards are based refused to release code or specifications for the cards, no doubt for similar reasons that were recently discussed here. The fact that the current alpha release is certainly as good, and in some areas better, than the binary drivers that escaped from one of the card manufactureres speaks volumes for the quality and determination of the team to create their own drivers."

Comments

Frugal is as...

[ZoneGray]

Hey, why throw out a $50 NIC when you can get it working by simply investing thousands of dollars' worth of your own time?

Re:And yet, the UN suggests WiFi laptops???

[AllUsernamesAreGone]

"Is this what poor third-world countries yearn for? Should they leapfrog to disaster?"

That's what western corporations want them to do - the third world is a vast, untapped resource to them: they have lots of nice natural resources for western companies to strip-mine or patent to hell and a big population that may forma huge market eventually.

"I'm disappointed someone like Mr.Kofi Annan suggested this stuff to poor nations."

you shouldn't be disappointed or surprised - the UN is little more than a US plaything.

Re:Don't buy unsupported hardware

[Gallowglass]

And from an evolutionary perspective, isn't it nice that users don't have to repurchase half of their software every three years when a new version of the OS comes out?

getting laid == getting fucked.

[twitter]

The kind of people who worry about "getting laid" are stupid fucks who view the opposite sex as a masturbation tool. They stand out like sore thumbs and rarely get used by those who decide they need a little cheap gratification at their expense. They never put anything like effort or understanding into anything and are perfect Windows users - always looking to screw others over and therfore are always in that position themsleves. This is the message implied in Bill Gate's talk about "commodity software" and market forces, yet Microsoft has the most expeensive and least versitile software there is. Con artists take advantage of their victim's greed and desire to get something for nothing. He who wants is always helpless.

People who write device drivers for themselves have device drivers and the knowledge of how to do it. They don't have to ask for them again and can contemplate their own devices to do things for them. This puts them in a much better position than the average windoze scmuck who has to buy nev devices that don't always do what they should every two years or so. That advantage translates into money and other things. Even when it does not, the silly Windoze user does not know what to do with himself.