LinuxAnt's DriverLoader Loads Centrino Drivers

cRueLio writes "The latest release of Linuxant's DriverLoader can now load Centrino drivers. This is very useful, because Intel has been resisting the release of Linux Centrino drivers. For those of you who don't know, DriverLoader is practically a wrapper for Windows wireless drivers."

Comments

Mirror Early, Mirror Often!

[Scalli0n]

Mirror just in case that server (which seems piddly) gets /.'ed:

LINUXANT RELEASES NEW DRIVERLOADER(TM) FOR INTEL CENTRINO, INTERSIL, BROADCOM, ATHEROS, AND OTHER WIRELESS LAN DEVICES

MONTREAL, QC Oct. 27, 2003 - Linuxant inc., a world-class supplier of consulting, software development and professional support services is announcing the immediate availability of DriverLoader(TM) 1.2, a revolutionary compatibility-wrapper allowing standard Windows NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) drivers shipped by hardware vendors to be used as-is on Linux x86 systems.

The main highlight of this new release is significant compatibility improvements with simultaneous support for multiple Windows drivers. DriverLoader 1.2 now supports Intel PRO/Wireless (Centrino), Intersil Prism GT/Duette/Indigo, Broadcom, Atheros, and other Wireless LAN drivers for Windows.

Linuxant is committed to continue improving DriverLoader so that it becomes a fully compatible generic solution capable of running the majority of Windows NDIS drivers.

DriverLoader technology is the ideal Linux solution to support devices for which no adequate native open-source drivers are available. It also allows vendors to drastically reduce time to market or eliminate the need to support multiple drivers for Windows and Linux. By using the same NDIS driver on both platforms, significant resources can be saved. All Linux-specific code in DriverLoader remains open-source, allowing it to be used under any supported version of the kernel.

Thanks to DriverLoader, owners of Wireless LAN devices (CardBus and PCI) with compatible Windows drivers can now use their devices under Linux, enjoying the full speed of the latest Wireless LAN technology with the freedom of the renowned open-source operating-system.

DriverLoader packages can be downloaded from Linuxant's web site at no cost*. The software is easy to install on standard Linux distributions (RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, and derivatives) with any recent 2.4 or 2.6 kernel, and includes a user-friendly Web-based configuration system.

Vendors interested in using DriverLoader technology to enable their products under Linux should contact services@linuxant.com.

For more information or to download your copy of DriverLoader, please go to http://www.linuxant.com

About Linuxant Linuxant is a world-class supplier of consulting, software development and professional support services. Linuxant works closely with leading vendors and OEMs of semiconductor, PC, embedded and communication/wireless products, as well as with companies in other industries, providing technological expertise and solutions to maximize the potential of Linux and open-source. Additionally, Linuxant develops and distributes specialized system software, such as device drivers for specific applications.

* Linuxant is happy to provide free trial DriverLoader licenses, while discussions are under way with hardware vendors to finance development costs. Linuxant hopes that DriverLoader will remain free for end-users.

Sig & Below

Why would Intel deny Linux of Centrino drivers?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Intel thinking?
Why would it be in their interest to do so?
Intel should just be happy selling as many chips as possible.
Is Microsoft strong arming Intel yet again?

Re:Why would Intel deny Linux of Centrino drivers?

[CaptBubba]

According to Intel the real drivers are "in development" for the wireless chipset. Rumored release is in the first half of 2004.

Re:Why would Intel deny Linux of Centrino drivers?

[FRiC]

Intel doesn't even provide the Centrino PRO/Wireless drivers for Windows for download. It's up to the Centrino manufacturers to provider the drivers.

Re:Why would Intel deny Linux of Centrino drivers?

[tmk]

I think that could mean the LinuxAnts efforts. They probably heard about the development - perhaps they have given them their binary drivers - and put the positive information on their page.

Re:Why would Intel deny Linux of Centrino drivers?

[Kanagawa]

Its definately an FCC problem. The newest a/b/g chipset drivers are what's called "software defined radios". SDR is a major regulartory nightmare for the FCC because they can be reprogrammed by the user (more or less). Hence, the FCC wants to see infrastructure on the card to authenticate the code that runs there [kernel discussion]. Annoyingly.

The madwifi project is developing drivers for the Atheros a/b/g chipset. I've been using them and they appear to be reasonably good, for the moment. But, the distribute with a uuencoded binary blob that unpacks into a kernel module... I hear there are access points on the market that are basically Atheros a/b/g mini-PCI cards inside a plastic casing.

On the flip side, at least Intel sees the need to convince the FCC to open spectrums [quote]:

A third major challenge facing SDR technology is convincing the FCC to open the radio spectrum. In the past, the FCC has regulated specific radio bands for different types of communications. A radio device is then licensed for use in only a specific frequency range. Intel and other industry leaders would like to see devices licensed for multiple radio spectra, rather than for only one communications band. This would allow manufacturers to make a single device that could broadcast and/or receive at any appropriate frequency. The frequency used for a specific type of communication could then depend on the device or user identification, such as for National Guard, police, fire, Air-Sea Rescue, animal control, border patrol, road construction, clean-water works, and so on.

windows drivers

[joe_bruin]

awesome. now linux too can have buggy drivers!

gotta wonder, did they implement the bluescreen feature?

Re:windows drivers

[Quarters]

Your statement is funny because everyone knows that there has never been a faulty or buggy driver written for Linux!

(rolls eyes)

Re:windows drivers

[kasperd]

did they implement the bluescreen feature?

Otherwise it is available for download here: bsod.c. The really great part about this version is, that you can have bluescreen exactly when you want, I for one use it when it is about time to go to bed.

Re:What what?

[ActiveSX]

If your WMP11 uses an x86, sure.

why

[Roryking]

Why do hardware manufacturers not release drivers for Linux (or for that matter any other non-Windows/Macintosh platform)? It would seem that the idea would be, more supported plaforms = wider customer base = more profit. I can understand how development might be an issue... but considering OS'es like Linux are open source, it would seem that development would be at least marginally easier and cheaper. Has anyone written/emailed/asked a HW maker this question? What was their reply?

Re:why

[stubear]

You're forgetting the part of the equation that deals with development time = drain on profits and if this drain > profits then it's not worth investing the development time.

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to which you have to remember that it is impossible to realease up to date binary drivers for linux without having to constantly maintain 100 different versions for all the different kernel builds by Redhat/Suse/Mandrake/etc (forget about gentoo, slack or custom kernels). The only way hardware manufacturers could get out of that pain is by releasing the source for their drivers which many are hesitant to do. The module versioning issue is really a pain compared to say windows where a vendor can release drivers that he knows will pretty much work across multiple versions of windows. I think this has got to be holding driver development for linux back.

Re:why

[edwdig]

In the case of Linux, the problem is the kernel is an unstable target. A driver written for the 2.2 kernel won't work with the 2.4 kernel. Sometimes even a point release will break compatibility.

Now factor in that most users aren't going to compile their own kernel and drivers. So you need packaged versions. What distros do you package for? What versions of that distro? It very quickly becomes a lot to maintain for little benefit.

As to other OS's, they've got such small userbases it isn't worth the effort.

What should happen is companies should just release documentation on the hardware when appropriate. I can somewhat understand NVidia and ATI's reluctance, but someone like a network card vendor shouldn't care.

My biggest gripe is companies that change the chipset on a product without changing the model number. Sometimes it makes it really difficult to ensure you're getting hardware that works outside of windows - or that it meets your needs.

Re:why

[rfmobile]

"The module versioning issue is really a pain compared to say windows where a vendor can release drivers that he knows will pretty much work across multiple versions of windows."

I can see you've never written a device driver for Windows. Microsoft DDK (device driver kits) are specific to each Windows version. Subsequent versions almost always break something.
-rick

Re:why

[Anonymous Coward]

So what. There are about 6 version of Windows. There are countless versions of Linux kernels in different distros or custom ones.

Re:why

[yanos]

it is impossible to realease up to date binary drivers for linux without having to constantly maintain 100 different versions for all the different kernel builds

why is that so? it's been a few years that nvidia does so.

Free?...or not?

[Scalli0n]

DriverLoader packages can be downloaded from Linuxant's web site at no cost*.

* Linuxant is happy to provide free trial DriverLoader licenses, while discussions are under way with hardware vendors to finance development costs. Linuxant hopes that DriverLoader will remain free for end-users.

Interesting. I'd hope that they get some money so that we can keep enjoying this, but at the same time, the words 'trial' and 'licenses' worry me a little. Been spending too much time GNU!

Wonderful.

[base3]

Now hardware vendors can blow off developing drivers for Linux. "Just download the wrapper and use the Win32 driver."

Seems to work for many..

[elemur]

I've been trying to get this working for a day or two without too much luck, but others on the mailing list are reporting success.

One good and important point.. yes, its using binary windows drivers, but they are trying to keep the whole project open source. They are going to hardware vendors who would otherwise like to support Linux, but don't want to port their code to a new architecture. Its a win/win for those who go along with it.

I've been working on getting the Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 card in my T40 working without too much luck yet, but I think its my local problem. Others report great success with the same card.

Re:Seems to work for many..

[skaffen42]

Its a win/win for those who go along with it.

I would have thought it was more a case of win/linux for those who go along with it. :)

Ouch. Did I actually just make a joke that lame?

Re:Seems to work for many..

[Jeffrey Baker]

This is commonly cited, but I've never seen any actual evidence. Looking at, for example, public information regarding Atheros' wireless chipsets, the RF bits include bandpass filtering to prevent the device from radiating in adjacent bands. No amount of register fiddling is going to change the underlying physics of the situation. My Cisco Aironet radio can be configured to radiate outside of power and band limits for most of the markets where it was sold, but that doesn't prevent them from releasing the source code to the driver.

I look at the situation like this: you could replace a capacitor or resistor or oscillator on the radio to make it out-of-spec, and maybe you could do the same thing by writing the wrong value in a register. But either way, the user is has to hack either the hardware or the software. Hardware hacking concerns don't prevent the sale of radios, and software hacking concerns shouldn't prevent the sale of radio drivers.

yeah, that was my first thought.

[twitter]

Now hardware vendors can blow off developing drivers for Linux. "Just download the wrapper and use the Win32 driver."

Yes, I hate the use of non-free drivers. They are buggy and don't get fixed or ported to new kernels. How Linuxant has managed to deal with the differnces between different versions of Windoze is beyond me. I got suckered into buying a wireless card with "Linux support". It tured out to have a binary module for a particular Red Hat kernel that was not easy to compile with my kernel version. It really sucked and I ended up just giving up.

If you think of this as a short term solution to the Microsoft monopoly problem you can smile. Hardware vendors can slip Linuxant specs on the side to make their card work. Linux ditributors can compile the wrapper to work with the correct kernel. What this means is that Microsoft can't punish hardware vendors for giving out information, because they won't know! The "careful dance" vendors have had to do is over. Wireless card makers won't have to worry about their card having "problems" on windoze platorms from the latest windoze "update". Once that happens, there will be no further need for the nasty windoze binaries. Hardware makers will then be able to compete on the basis of what their hardware does, not what M$ wants to "support".

Congratulations to Linuxant.

Fuck you Microsoft, you are circumvented.

How have they done this?

[Zaffle]

I understand they have written a wrapper for the NDIS bindings in Windows, (I think, much the same way Wine is doing for the entire Windows API), but did they need to purchase anything/licenses etc from Microsoft?

If not, then is it possible to do this as open source, there-by removing the problem of this going commercial (much like Crossover)?

As I understand it, there is nothing stopping someone from writting a similar product and releasing it under an open source license.

Is there anything in particular that would stop someone from doing this?

You forget

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

As soon as they release the source, the community maintains it. Try that with windows drivers.

Re:even more offtopic (sorry)

[ScrewMaster]

Not at all. What most people don't realize is that Slashdot passed the Turing Test some time ago. All those "Anonymous Cowards" are actually generated by a self-aware AI running in the background on Google's processor array.

Development effort

[mjander]

As someone who has participated in the development of a linux audio driver, and now i'm trying get it ported it to windows, writing drivers for linux is much easier than on windows.

-At first, there "are" linux developer competent enough. There are many willing to help, and stuff gets done.

-I still don't know anyone around me who is capable of writing a WDM driver, but i know quite a bunch of people who are writing kernel drivers all the time.

I guess, we linux (or BSD or what you like) developer should better write a Windows linux driver loader, so hardware makers can release linux only drivers.

linuxant sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you DriverLoader fanatics? I've been sitting here at a cafe close to my freelance gig sipping a latte in front of a centrino Linux laptop running DriverLoader for about 4 hours now while it attempts to download a 17 kilobyte file from the internet. 4 hours. At home, on my Commodore 64 connecting to the Internet using a modem with an acoustic coupler connected using a speakerphone across the room, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this laptop, the same operation would take about 30 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, Mozilla won't work. And my latte has gone cold waiting for a ssh session to negotiate. Even ed over a telnet session (unencrypted over wireless! insecure, I know, but I'm desperate) to my C64 running Lunix is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Centrino laptops running DriverLoader, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a wirelessly connected centrino laptop that has run faster than its Commodore counterpart with acoustic-coupler speakerphone wireless, despite the Centrino's faster chip architecture. My Atari 2600 with 128 bytes of ram with avian carrier RFC1149 wireless runs faster than this centrino machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the LinuxLoader is a superior piece of software.

LinuxAnt addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use DriverLoader over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

Re:Confirmation, please

[Benley]

I'm having to reboot back to 2.4 for the Cisco vpn driver,

There's a solution to that if you're using the Cisco VPN3000 client: this mailing list posting by a friend of mine explains how to make it work.

Which wireless hardware works with Free Software?

[jbn-o]

For those of us who want only Free Software, what wireless hardware works with Free Software drivers?

Happy customer

[aralin]

I have to say, that although binary, these drivers are very good. I am using them on my notebook and they just work. I had a little problem with 1.03 version, but since 1.20 they work very good. These people know what they are doing, they have download for every current kernel used in major versions of major distributions. And they want to provide that for free if the manufacturers chip in for their effort. I welcome that my internal wireless card is working NOW and not in 2004. Thank you, Linuxant.

Reverse Engineering

[Markus Registrada]

This is a Good Thing. Running the Windows driver in a wrapper on Linux makes it much easier to reverse-engineer. Anything discovered that way is free of vendors' non-disclosure agreements. This applies to lots of drivers, and lots of manufacturers, not just Intel and Centrino.

Don't use for Intersil or Atheros

[linefeed0]

The Intersil PrismGT chipset used in low-end 802.11g cards from Netgear/SMC/D-Link (not the turbo 108 variety), and the Atheros 5k family used in almost all turbo 108 mbps 802.11g cards and nearly all 802.11a cards have good native linux drivers which are either entirely or have the most significant parts as open source.

Although the DriverLoader apparently supports these cards, please support these companies in either helping develop Linux driver support or releasing specifications (both of which Intel and Broadcom adamantly refuse to do) by

a) purchasing their products when you have a choice (e.g. buy Pentium-M instead of Centrino and add on a third-party wireless card, and don't buy 802.11g products from Linksys or Dell which use Broadcom), and

b) Use the open-source drivers rather than emulating windows drivers, let the chip (Atheros and Globespan/Virata nee Intersil) and the card companies know that you appreciate their linux support. Report bugs and feedback to the open source projects, too.

It's nice to have something like this around as a stopgap way to load drivers for hardware made by manufacturers with poor linux support, and even as a way for manufacturers to ship initial drivers for linux inexpensively for them (and claim "linux support out of the box"), but it is no substitute for published specs and real drivers (which, with published specs, the companies don't even have to develop themselves).

Beware Linuxant! The future goes from bad to worse

[GoRK]

Linuxant has a short and torrid history in the Linux driver scene. They pretty well burst onto the scene after Marc Boucher got the rights from Conexant to develop kernel drivers for their HSF/HCF chipsets. Users enjoyed a couple years of very well supported drivers (apparently with the manufacturer's financial backing) until about two months ago when Linuxant "announced" their new and improved version of the HCF/HSF modem driver.

Guess what? They decided that development costs were too great and thus, they charge for it now. On top of that they removed all prior free releases of the driver (which worked just fine for all but some of the newest cards and/or some of the more esoteric modem features) from their website. There was no warning for this change, and they began sending marketing emails to their driver -announce list.

With this kind of history, I am wary of supporting any kind of use of their windows-driver wrappers for wireless cards. I am wary that I or my users will grow to rely on these drivers and then have the rug pulled from under our feet. I am wary that hardware manufacturers will grow indifferent to providing native Linux drivers while this product is available and works well. When the time comes that you have to fork out an extra $40 to Linuxant.

Please be aware that I am not opposed to Linuxant marketing their products commercially. It has been my experience that they produce very good work and code that does what it says. It's a shame that the hardware manufacturers cannot seem to support their work financially, as I believe it is in the manufacturers' best interests to see that their hardware works with a wide variety of software and operating systems. For Linuxant not to be up front about this matter is pretty low-brow.

The similarities to their namesake are striking... Linuxant: Keeping the business ideals of Conexant alive and well in the Linux community!

~GoRK

Performance?

[Jahf]

Anyone used these wrappers to say what type of performance they can achieve?

For instance, just putting traffic through a or NAT routine can take up to 10% speed hit if you have no other significant bottlenecks. Yeah, I know, my example isn't apples-to-apples, it's just meant to give an example of a performance hit.

I would imagine a wrapper, even for a completely bug-free alien driver, would have some form of performance degradation and/or extra CPU usage or both.

As a side note, I too am very afraid that this will further stifle linux native device driver support from commercial outfits.

Heh... I can see the "real" press release now...

[Bowie J. Poag]

Dear Intel,

...(half a page of empty space)...

pwned.

...(half a page of empty space)...

Sincerely,

the Linuxant team.

Good Linux Hacking

[tintruder]

Yesterday I got called a M$ Troll for comments on hacking an AP to put Linux on it.

But when I see something as useful as this, I have to hand it to the developers.

Now a whole family of contemporary laptops have been rendered fully functional under Linux.

Fully functional DESPITE THE INTENTIONAL NEGLECT BY THE CORE VENDORS.

One must wonder why OEM support for Linux is so fragmented; sometimes superb, sometimes completely absent.

Could it be that the financial aspects of Linux make it less appealing somehow? After all, it would be crazy for Intel et.al. to omit Windows support.

Good work guys!

Intel Driver Support for Wireless

[fuzzybunny]

I recently wrote a nice letter to Intel about the built-in wifi card on my ThinkPad X31, to ask whether Linux (or FreeBSD! Yay!) drivers would ever be available?

I got a very friendly response from them:


Hello John,

Thank you for contacting Intel(R) Technical Support.

In order for Linux to run on Intel(R) Centrino(TM) mobile technology-based systems,
software drivers are needed for the processor, chipset, and 802.11 wireless
components. Currently Linux drivers are available for the Intel(R) Pentium(R) M
processor and Intel(R) 855PM and 855GM chipsets. A Linux driver for the Intel(R)
PRO/Wireless 2100 wireless network connection is currently under development.

You can check back at the following link for the latest information on Linux driver
support for the Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2100 network connection.

http://support.intel.com/support/network/sb/cs-0 06 059-prd38.htm

Sincerely,
Roberto G.

Intel(R) Technical Support
http://support.intel.com

Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the
United States and other countries.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

->Hi there,
->
->I recently bought a Thinkpad X31, after great experiences with an X20.
->The only weakness is the lack of Linux/FreeBSD drivers (first thing
->I did was netboot FreeBSD and re-format XP off the drive) for the
->built in WiFi interface. I know there are currently no plans for these,
->but please consider this yet another happy X31 user, who'd love to see
->some nice person write a driver.
->
->Cheers,
->
->-John

Re:Today'a paranoia is tommorow's reality

[MrLint]

Indeed what is the motivation. For instance, Garmin GPS wont work on the MacOS. Someone offered to write the drivers and app for free and garmin refused. The USB adapter wont even work under VPC (as i understand) it checks if its running under VPC.

You work out the reasons cause i sure as hell cant.

Atheros drivers aren't ready for prime time

[wowbagger]

I have an Atheros A/B/G PCI card, and I can say that the Madwifi drivers for this card just aren't ready for prime time - go read the various messages about this card if you don't believe me.

The drivers will crash the kernel, will sometimes simply stop working after a while, and when they are working, they do not transfer data anywhere near the theoretical limits of the card.

The card "sort of" work to access an access point, but if you want to use them to create an access point they just don't work in my experience - I could see the other devices trying to access the system, but the MadWiFi driver was not accepting the connections. This even though I had WEP turned off and had the ESSID's set the same. Furthurmore, the driver's diagnostics simply could not tell me WHY the packets were being dropped.

Yes, the way to improve the native driver is to give feedback, to hack the code, and to try to improve that driver, rather than using the Windows driver, but please do not give people the impression that the Atheros drivers are anything other than extremely pre-alpha and unstable.

The real solution here is to pressure the card drivers to design the cards so that the system driver cannot be made to violate FCC/DTI/... specs - a microcontroller embedded on the card to control the RF adds $.25 to the bill of materials (less if integrated into the ASICs in the card) and would completely remove the problem of open-sourcing the drivers.

NVIDIA

[Ender Ryan]

The difference is simply that NVIDIA has competent driver writers. NVIDIA has a binary driver, with a very small source-based wrapper, and they wrote a simple installer that handles building it.

Their Linux driver is based on their Windows driver, and shares 90%+ of the same code.

OTOH, that's not to say that you don't have a valid point, distributing binary drivers for Linux could definately be easier. I think that "problem" has been ignored so far because a lot of kernel developers don't want to encourage distribution of binary drivers, which is understandable, IMO.

BTW, you don't have to patch your kernel to add new drivers, there are plenty of drivers distributed as source that will build against the existing kernel.

Re:NVIDIA

[DrXym]

The difference is simply that NVIDIA has competent driver writers. NVIDIA has a binary driver, with a very small source-based wrapper, and they wrote a simple installer that handles building it.

I would assume that most manufacturers have competant driver writers and they'd be made more competant if they weren't required to reinvent the wheel each time. The case of NVidia is interesting. It's good they offer drivers, but they are a major pain to obtain to obtain and require you have a clue about shell scripts and other technicalities (e.g. running as root, exiting from X before installing them etc.). Why can't they be shipped with the dist? And if that is not possible for one reason or another, why can't SUSE / Mandrake / RedHat hold your hand and take you to them once the rest of installation is done?

Even if they did grab the installer and run it for you, NVidia demonstrates another problem withthe 'roll your own' situation in Linux. Their installer didn't like my RH9.0 umask (set by default in the OS) and installed files with the wrong permissions. A standard and dist-neutral driver installer mechanism would obviate all these sort of pitfalls.

BTW, you don't have to patch your kernel to add new drivers, there are plenty of drivers distributed as source that will build against the existing kernel.

Which still assumes you have the kernel headers and a complete toolchain. This blows out of the water any chance your average Lindows user might have of installing whatever-it-is. Of course you might get lucky and find a binary module compiled against your particular kernel, but then again you might not.

Anyway I think the dist makers should band together and recognize this is a shared problem and produce the tools and testing labs which allow vendors to produce a single working, signed and tested driver that will run with one dist to the next. Kernel hackers might not care for binary compatibility but I find it hard to believe that such a thing is impossible for dist makers to add.