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Linux Centrino Driver Update
Edy52285 writes "An article on News.com talks about how Intel has been, and still is, dragging on releasing their Linux drivers for Centrino. Intel is reluctant to release its drivers as open source since doing so would reveal secrets about their wireless hardware. Linux in currently unable to take advantage of Centrino's wireless networking devices, without, that is, prying $20 from your thin wallet to buy Linuxant's DriverLoader (discussed in an earlier story). Will Swope (Intel's General Manager of Software and Solutions Group) said in an interview said "What I believe will happen is we will end up having a Linux compatibility driver that is not open source at first, then designing future drivers in such a way that they are open source but will not expose intellectual property," Intel seem to be taking its time on releasing the drivers, and even in the article, there is a lack of any commitment on a date or under what conditions the drivers will be released." Also, someone pointed out that it's worth checking out ndiswrapper for the driver.
Not true. I'm using the open-source ndiswrapper project together with the win32 drivers, and it works, although a bit buggy. See here
Intel PRO/Wireless Lan (Centrino)
For more info:
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
This is an open source implementation that allows linux users to load their windows drivers and use their WiFi cards.
Its still very new, but there has been some success with the centrino chipset, as well as Admtek, Atheros and Broadcom cards.
Much of the actual work of the Centrino wireless hardware is performed in software, much like the "Winmodems" that were so widespread a few years ago (and, I guess, still are - does anyone make a modem with an actual UART on it anymore?) Intel is hesitant to provide the information that will allow people to write a driver for Linux, because that information would necessarily provide 100% of the software engineering necessary for someone else to create a Centrino-like hardware solution.
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AFAIK, the radio emissions from the wireless card are regulated (by the FCC in the US?) so as to avoid interference with other spectrum users. Much of this regulation is acheived through the close-source drivers.
Using modified drivers, it would be possible to make the card emit different frequencies or more power, thereby violating the usage licence.
M-Systems' DiscOnChips are very nice flash chips which we use in some ThinClients. While there is support for those in the 2.4.x kernel tree it never worked for us. So we took M-Systems drivers.
.o file which is the real driver which does the real work. This way you can build kernel modules for you favourite kernel with M-Systems not releasing any "critical" source code.
:-)
.o file which links together a kernel module. Et voila: Neutrino support for every kernel without releasing the real source code !
Now they seem to be in a similar boat: they don't like to give out their intellectual property. Their solution is what looks like a driver stub and a binary
This practice means that you can't compile the driver into the kernel, you have to build a module (since the GPL does not allow building that propietary driver into the GPL'ed kernel, but allows non-GPL'ed kernel modules since they are not part of the resulting program or so... at least this what I recall Linus saying about that subject).
But having a module does the job as well, using an initrd we can boot from M-Systems DoC perfectly (in Real Mode they are accessible like a harddisk). The extra-effort is worth it since in our experience they are a lot more reliable than Flash IDE Chips, and reliablity is an important factor in embedded systems like ThinClients
Intel could do it the same way: release a driver stub and a binary
Read this post about using the Windows NDIS centrino driver (and other drivers) on FreeBSD, using the "NDISulator" (a.k.a. "Project Evil"). See this post for details on Project Evil. And unlike the linuxant thing, this is free.
This revealed, do most linux users even want a Centrino-based laptop?
Hells yeah! I'm within a year of replacing my old PIII 550Mhz Compaq laptop, which has been a trusty and faithful machine until recently but is now starting to give me hardware problems.
My next machine would be a Dell 300M running SUSE because it's ultra-portable, but thanks to Intel dragging their feet my next machine will probably be a G5 powerbook running Fink. Actually, Dell gets part-credit. Their recent quality control problems have made me suspect the reliability of their hardware.
That's the way the market works. Hey Intel, thanks for playing, but this ball just went over the fence!
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
These card are relatively inexpensive. There's no particular reason to pick a Centrino laptop because of the built-in WLAN support.
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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
I've been a Linux zealot since 1995, but just two annoying things have forced me to spend 90% of my time booted into my WinXP partition on my Panasonic toughbook:
:-/
- swsusp is not reliable. Sorry, but I can't be patient when my fucking laptop hangs on the 2nd or 3rd resume. Cold booting and shutting down is just too damned slow, so I rarely bother anymore.
- lack of Centrino support. Bastards at Intel! I would not have purchased this laptop if I knew I would have gotten shafted on Linux support -- especially when I was under the impression Intel was Linux-friendly!)
Oh, and I guess a 3rd problem has begun to rear its ugly head now that I'm getting into video capture and editing via firewire. Namely driver support and applications.
Ah, but I'll never give up Linux on the server OR my main desktop.
I track known Slashdot scumbags on my foes list!
you miss the fact that the vast majority of people who buy these laptops don't care. When 95% of customers don't care, the 5% who do are ignored because of the profit that the majority brings.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
But Apple's AirPort Extreme WLAN cards aren't supported under Linux either, according to Yellow Dog's support. They neither support modem, bluetooth or external displays. Hell, they even don't support sleep, which kinda sucks in a laptop. At least most Centrino laptops probably support APM (and ACPI, if you can tune it to work).
I have an Apple 12" PowerBook. Never tried running Linux on it, though.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
That's not the real reason.
Intel doesn't want to release the specs because the Centrino's flexibility allows you to do certain things that breach government broadcast regulations.
Until they can figure out a way to block J. Random Hacker from doing that, they won't release jack shit.
I've simply removed from my laptop the Intel Pro Wireless 2100 WiFi Mini-PCI card and replaced it with a Atheros 802.11a/b/g chipset. The Multiband Atheros Driver for Wifi (aka MadWifi) is well supported under Linux. It even has a great FAQ.
The card I bought is an IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN MiniPCI Adapter (IBM Part Number: 31P9701), and works flawlessly under REHL3.
--It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.
Odds are Intel does know better than you armchair engineers.
Having worked there up until a few years ago, I'd say that most of them agree with the "armchair engineers" and think it's silly to try to hide stuff this way. But there are (lets see, where's that Post Anonymously button?) flaming morons in various management positions (mostly marketing) that are totally clueless. AMD, et al. have the resources to disassemble the binary only drivers anyway, so the only thing you are doing is slowing the adoption by technically oriented users, but they can not / will not see this.
We even had people like Linus, ESR, BP, etc. come out and do dog & pony shows about why it's a Good Idea to open things like this up, but the only thing that seems to be working is a gradual process of selective retirement of the morons. (Intel's culling process to rid itself of the clueless can best be described as "brutal".) Saddly (since I still have stock & and friends in Intel) there is a fair voluntary exodus of the cluefull as well.
-- Anonomous Coward
P.S. The funniest part of the dog & pony show was when one of the PHPs listed among the downside of open sourcing the "fact" that it would piss off MS.
The legal department people who were there were not clueless and came down on the poor idiot like a ton of lead. From the hurt look on his face I think he expected them to side with him.
When I emailed people at Intel over this matter, they eluded to the fact that releasing the source to a centrino wireless driver would violate FCC rules. Basically, the radiomodem in centrinos are totally programmable. That means, if you have the code, you can broadcast whatever you want on whatever frequency you want. You can violate FCC rules, and the FCC doesn't like that. Therefore, to be FCC certified, the user can not be able to change certain parts of the modem.
It sounds plausible, but they also could have been blowing smoke.
Perhaps they plan to move that logic into a future mobile CPU chip.
yes they do. and into everything
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Owners of IBM Thinkpad X31's (and perhaps other IBMs, too; I don't know) cannot use this solution without a BIOS upgrade.
2 .2/0147.html for a more complete explanation)
The reason is, IBM's BIOS actually checks that the Mini-PCI wireless card is one of several "acceptable" cards, and will refuse to boot if it is not. The acceptable ones are the Intel Centrino card, and a a Cisco card. With a BIOS upgrade, apparently an IBM sourced Atheros-based card (model number 31P9701) will work. (see http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/031
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
Not flamebaitish at all, it's actually a very good question.
First off, a 1.5GHz Pentium M will run circles around a 2.0GHz Celeron. Actually it will beat the pants off a 2.8GHz Celeron, but the Celeron is perhaps a bad example because that chip REALLY stinks! The current Celerons (1.7GHz through to 2.8GHz, basically a castrated bastard-child of the regular Pentium4) are absolutely abysmal performers, so it doesn't take much to beat them; AMD's $35 Duron processors running at 1.6GHz will usually match or beat the 2.8GHz Celeron.
Simply put, there are two main methods of designing a fast processor; the "brainiac" model where the chip does a lot of work per clock cycle but doesn't clock as high, and the "speed demon", which doesn't do much per clock cycle but runs at very high clock speeds.
The Pentium4 is very much a "speed demon" design, which is why it clocks nearly twice as high as most other chip produced on a similar manufacturing technology. The Pentium-M takes more of the "brainiac" style of design, so it's harder for Intel to clock it to high speeds, but it does more work per clock cycle.
In reality, the Pentium M doesn't really run at slower clock speeds than many other CPUs, it currently tops out at 1.7GHz. For comparison the Athlon64 is running at 2.2GHz, the PPC 970 (aka G5) at 2.0GHz, the Power4+ at 1.7GHz, the Itanium2 at 1.5GHz, Alpha EV7 at 1.25GHz, UltraSparc III at 1.2GHz, etc. Really the only odd-ball is the Pentium4, which currently clocks up to 3.2GHz. Despite the wide range in clock speed though, in the end all of these chips are in the same general ball-park in terms of performance.
Now, there are a LOT of factors that influence the overall speed of a processor, and even a quick summary of them could easily take dozens of pages, but it's already well documented in books and on the web if you're interested. Suffice it to say that a Pentium-M is usually about as fast as a 2.2 to 2.6GHz P4, though individual applications can vary wildly.
This doesn't exactly mean that clock speeds are irrelevant, a 1.7GHz Pentium-M is still going to be faster than a 1.3GHz Pentium-M, it's just that clock speed is only one small part of the whole picture. I like to equate it to the displacement of a engine. All else being equal, a 4.0L engine will give you a faster car than a 3.0L engine. However, it's certainly possible to build a 3.0L engine that will produce more horsepower than a totally different design of 4.0L engine (F1 cars manage to pump ~900bhp out of a 3.0L engine, while most 4.0L engines you're likely to see in production cars produce only ~300bhp). What's more, the peak horsepower number doesn't tell the full picture of engine performance and it certainly doesn't tell you how fast the car as a whole would be. Similarly, for any given processor core, higher clock speeds will give you more performance. On the other hand, two different cores can haver very different performance at different clock speeds, and certainly other components like the video cards, memory and hard drive can all have a big impact on the overall performance of the system.
When you get down to it, it's simply a matter of design decisions and trade-offs. The Pentium-M was designed to offer good performance and low power, and it succeeds VERY well (I'm a big fan of the Pentium-M processor, even if I rather dislike the "Centrino" marketing program). The P4 was designed for the highest overall performance at a reasonable price-point. As a result, the top-end P4s are faster than the top-end Pentium-M chips, and probably always will be. However, the Pentium-M at 1.7GHz consumes only about 25W. A similar performance P4, even in it's low-power laptop version (the "Mobile Pentium4-M", not to be confused with either the "Mobile Pentium-M" or the "Mobile Pentium4", and some people say AMD's names are confusing!) consumes 35W at 2.5GHz. Meanwhile the regular desktop Pentium4 (and also the "Mobile Pentium4") conume 61W. That 2.0GHz mobile Celeron processor you mentioned comes in at 32W.