Intel Releases Linux Driver For Centrino WLAN

Intel Feeling the Pressure? by CrankyFool · 2004-03-10 04:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

This really feels like Intel's finally feeling its stranglehold on the industry wavering a little (given AMD's 64bit success). I'd like to believe that this is going to lead them to start treating us like customers, rather than prisoners. Certainly, this is a nice first step.

Re:Intel Feeling the Pressure? by bill_doors · 2004-03-10 04:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think the same... big hardware companies are changing the way they see Linux community and the computer market at all. Everyday we are more and more and more!!!
(I feel as the Agent Smith a little... he he he)
Re:Intel Feeling the Pressure? by Oriumpor · 2004-03-10 05:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

This is no first step, it's the begining of the end of many steps Intel has taken forth with it's centrino *line.* The only remaining piece was the WLAN component they have already facilitated the release of the speed stepping and other integrated components.

Wintel isn't ALWAYS the badguy.

NOW, I can say THANK GOODNESS no more lockups in Fedora from DriverLoader BS, now my only question is how will they allow Linux users to flash their firmware when the manufacturers don't provide floppy drives on most of the Centrino lines.
Re:Intel Feeling the Pressure? by John+Hurliman · 2004-03-10 06:20 · Score: 3, Informative

K3b allows you to emulate a floppy disk on CDROM by burning a DOS bootdisk image to CD. When it boots you have A:\ which is the contents of the image file, and if CDROM drivers were loaded you have another drive letter for the the rest of the CD contents. I flashed the BIOS on my laptop from a Linux only environment like this.
Re:Intel Feeling the Pressure? by Ktulu_03 · 2004-03-10 06:46 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.k3b.org/
Re:Intel Feeling the Pressure? by the+Hewster · 2004-03-10 07:45 · Score: 2, Interesting

my only question is how will they allow Linux users to flash their firmware when the manufacturers don't provide floppy drives on most of the Centrino lines.

the article mentions Firmware but i suspect it is similar to some USB ADSL modems: the firmware is routinely uploaded by the driver during init. I doubt this means the firmware needs to be updated to *support* Linux (do you remember ever flashing any hardware's BIOS to run Linx?), the Windows driver probably does the same thing.
Re:Intel Feeling the Pressure? by Mysticalfruit · 2004-03-10 08:50 · Score: 3, Informative

The correct format for a CDROM where the first track is bootable (and presented by the BIOS) as a 1.44MB floppy is called "El Torito"

Boy oh boy, were those IBMer's wacky...

--
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.

Re:This couldn't be better timed... by Directrix1 · 2004-03-10 04:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

Everybody, now this is your chance. Support Intel in their decision to open-source a driver, by buying their product. They are a rare breed.

--
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF

From ipw2100_main.c by tcopeland · 2004-03-10 04:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

Whew!

if (!((r <= w && (e < r || e >= w)) || (e < r && e >= w))) { IPW2100_DEBUG_TX("exit - no processed packets ready to release.\n"); return 0; }

Fortunately there's a little ASCII art right above it that helps explain what that if condition does:

/* * Quick graphic to help you visualize the following * if / else statement * * ===>| s---->|=============== * e>| * | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l * r---->| * w * * w - updated by driver * r - updated by firmware * s - start of oldest BD entry (txq->oldest) * e - end of oldest BD entry * */

--
The Army reading list

Re:From ipw2100_main.c by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-10 04:44 · Score: 4, Funny

Whatever happened to meaningful variables (which is taught at age 12 before you even touch a language)
Re:From ipw2100_main.c by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-10 04:49 · Score: 5, Funny

Duh!
This is high performance code! Single-letter variable names execute more faster.
U R teh st00p3d.
Re:From ipw2100_main.c by Shisha · 2004-03-10 05:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Judging by the scope of these variables and the fact that they seem to be docummented right at the top, I don't think anyone could have an issue with that.

In fact, sometimes explaining what a variable means and then using just a one letter name is much more helpful than names like "thisOneINeedToDoThisBecauseOfThat".

Just think of the use of "i" in for loops, no one in the right set of mind would use something like "loopCounter".

It's a bit like in PDE theory, if you use t, then you don't have to bother specifying that t belongs to [0,T] and that it's time - everyone expects that.
Re:From ipw2100_main.c by sydb · 2004-03-10 05:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Just think of the use of "i" in for loops, no one in the right set of mind would use something like "loopCounter"

Quite, but if you're choosing decent variable names, you would never think of chooseing loopCounter!

What are you counting? That's what the variable name should be.

Iterating over rows in a matrix (or whatever)? then the variable name should be 'row'! Not rowCount or RowNumber or count or r, simply 'row'.

Then row++ makes sense - next row.

--
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Re:From ipw2100_main.c by HermanZA · 2004-03-10 08:10 · Score: 2, Funny

My favourite is things like this:
#define TWENTY 19
That is much worse than single character names.
Re:From ipw2100_main.c by Ben+Hutchings · 2004-03-10 10:21 · Score: 2, Informative

Haven't you ever used a circular buffer before? r and w are the read and write positions within the buffer; e is the "end of oldest BD entry" (BD = buffer descriptor, at a guess). The condition for throwing out a "BD entry" is that the end of it is within the free space in the buffer after w and before r, allowing for wrap-around.

NDISWRAPPER by cuban321 · 2004-03-10 04:28 · Score: 4, Informative

Until these drivers stabilize you can use NDISWRAPPER.

This tool allows you to run the Windows driver for some wireless cards that have little or no Linux support.

Daniel

Re:NDISWRAPPER by gspr · 2004-03-10 04:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

Do not encourage the use of NDISWRAPPER! Someone will probably moderate this as Troll, but come on - we all know that having such a "fallback option" makes the hardware makers relax more when it comes to releasing natively running, opensource Linux drivers!
Re:NDISWRAPPER by Zakabog · 2004-03-10 04:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

But for them to relax more they'd have to be working on something in the first place, most of the hardware makers that are willing to support linux are gonna do it with the best drivers they can, not have people running their software in linux with some little hack. And the ones that don't support linux don't care that some little app lets people run windows drivers, they weren't going to support linux anyway it's not worth it for them. If NDISWRAPPER works then people should use it, I know I'd deffinitely use it if it supports my laptops network card (haven't been able to get this thing to work at all, some fairly old lucent technologies wireless card, I think there is support for some newer version of this card but not mine.) I'd use a newer card with linux support but the laptop itself doesn't support these (dunno why, tried some netgear card it didn't like that very much I think the PCMCIA slot in my laptop is 16 bit or something like that it's an old laptop.)
Re:NDISWRAPPER by Inuchance · 2004-03-10 08:25 · Score: 4, Funny

You're both right! You should continue to use NDISWRAPPER, while complaining about it every chance you get.

SCO by Youssef+Adnan · 2004-03-10 04:29 · Score: 3, Funny

Here goes my karma: Are you sure this code doesn't belong to SCO? I mean, we all know that all open source projects belong to them but we're hiding it. :)

Thanks, Intel... by MsGeek · 2004-03-10 04:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm impressed. A real open-source driver from a major company...this shames the NVidias and the Lucents of the world who give stupid excuses for their closed-source drivers.

Looks like I'm going to be sniffing around for a refurbed IBM T41 ThinkPad with Centrino tech in the future.

--
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.

Re:Thanks, Intel... by Iscariot_ · 2004-03-10 04:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

this shames the NVidias and the Lucents of the world who give stupid excuses for their closed-source drivers.

Better than no driver at all...

--

Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Re:Thanks, Intel... by /dev/trash · 2004-03-10 04:46 · Score: 3, Informative

Read the article.....it's not really there yet.
Re:Thanks, Intel... by dave420 · 2004-03-10 05:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

Stupid excuses like "this cost us millions to produce, so we're not going to give the code away to you and our competitors, which would eventually cause us to lose so much revenue we'd not be able to make any more cards/drivers for you at all"?
Re:Thanks, Intel... by Florian+Weimer · 2004-03-10 05:02 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm impressed. A real open-source driver from a major company...

You haven't browsed the Linux source code lately, have you?

There are at least two other Intel drivers in them.
Re:Thanks, Intel... by Just+Some+Guy · 2004-03-10 05:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Barely. I'd pine for the closed NVidia driver if I were a gamer (I still wouldn't use it, but I'd at least be tempted). For 2d stuff, XFree's 'nv' driver is fast, rock solid, and works out of the box - and it's Free.
Closed source drivers are evil, and are in fact what triggered RMS to begin the Free Software movement. They encourage complacency while giving nothing.

--
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Re:Thanks, Intel... by Unregistered · 2004-03-10 05:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

this shames the NVidias and the Lucents of the world who give stupid excuses for their closed-source drivers.

Quit bitching. IICRC, NVidia doesn't own all the code in their drivers and anyway, why should they be forced to disclose stuff they consider a trade secret? They provide solid, working drivers for an OS used by like 1% of the desktop market. That's pretty impressive, imo.
Re:Thanks, Intel... by Jeffrey+Baker · 2004-03-10 05:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

Intel makes $0 from the sale of their drivers. Also the marginal cost to produce a Linux driver when you already have 1) a Windows driver, and 2) a staff of Linux hackers is very much lower than "millions of dollars". However, the marginal cost of sales of Intel Centrino laptops to Linux users will be several hundred dollars each.
The economics are pretty simple. Probably some large client like Goldman Sachs or a similarly sized outfit wants to run Linux on laptops and told Intel to get their act together.
Re:Thanks, Intel... by sxpert · 2004-03-10 05:11 · Score: 2, Informative

the firmware is closed source because this is rendered compulsory by the military. furthermore, the firmware runs INSIDE THE CARD, which is similar to the software that runs your printer.
Re:Thanks, Intel... by Tore+S+B · 2004-03-10 05:12 · Score: 3, Interesting

...this shames the NVidias and ...

Well, nVidia has a good reason - they use proprietary algorithms lisenced from companies who makes them for a living. Their lisence disallows them from releasing the source. Thus, it is not a stupid excuse. Their hands are really tied. Intel also had some completely valid concerns that an Open-Source driver would allow their chip to tune to frequencies out of the legal WLAN band, and at signal strengths way higher than the legal limit, to name a few.

Luckily, Intel (justly IMO) judged that the competitive advantages of Linux support outweighed those risks.

-tsb

--
toresbe
Re:Thanks, Intel... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-10 05:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Intel has stated that they are treating Linux as a "Tier 1" platform -- same support as Windows. Only that the Centrino wireless was a bit of a fuckup on their part.

Intel is also responsible for Linux ACPI, EFI, and all of the modern Intel chipset support -- including AGP, SATA, etc, and NIC drivers. I think they also do the XFree drivers for their graphics chipsets.

Compare this to NVidia (100% binary) or VIA/SIS/etc (reverse engineering by Linux devs, many bugs), and Intel is really THE top notch Linux hardware vendor. Too bad they get flamed so hard by the AMD fanboy cross-over crowd.
Re:Thanks, Intel... by realnowhereman · 2004-03-10 05:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

This is a great argument - except for one thing. Why can't they release all of their code? If there is somebody else's code in there that has to be binary only why can't THOSE be the parts that are binary only? A couple of ".o" files in a mass of ".c" files named "sgi.o", "ms.o", "sun.o", etc to hide the non-disclosable binary bits. At the very least the bugs in the rest of it could be hunted down and squashed. It's just an excuse, they don't want to release it. I'd rather they said so than blame it on some other company.

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Carpe Daemon
Re:Thanks, Intel... by Fluffy+the+Cat · 2004-03-10 05:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

The nvidia binary code is almost the entirity of the driver, and mostly runs on the host CPU. If it was just GPU firmware, you'd be able to use the driver on PPC or Alpha.
Re:Thanks, Intel... by spitzak · 2004-03-10 06:55 · Score: 2, Insightful

We all know the closed-source driver is better. But it is not better *because* it is closed source. Some argue that it would be even better open-source because people would fix it, but even if nothing was changed, it would be exactly the same open-source.

The argument is that Intel might demonstrate that releasing the source for something does not cause you to go out of business tomorrow.

Open Source Driver + Firmware by alex_tibbles · 2004-03-10 04:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

Is this a full driver or is the firmware a subtle way of making a closed-source driver?

(Honest question)

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Posters recognized by their sig,

Re:Open Source Driver + Firmware by vranash · 2004-03-10 04:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Given the supposed lack of foresight in their hardware design that most wlan vendors have taken recently (using basically 'soft wlan' cards), it is probably more akin to a 'partially closed driver', in that you probably won't have access to the channel frequencies, adding new network modes (master, monitor, etc). HOWEVER given that, it should allow future patching to the kernel side of the driver to support whatever future interface changes happen to ensure the card won't suddenly become useless.

IMHO, this is what all wlan dealers should be doing... if you can't give direct access to the hardware due to possible legal/FCC constraints, then you should have firmware to handle the interfacing so that you can at least release firmware interface specs, and hopefully be able to cut down on cross development costs by having your firmware patches enhance both linux and windows functionality while stomping out mutual bugs.
Re:Open Source Driver + Firmware by alex_tibbles · 2004-03-10 04:41 · Score: 5, Informative

to answer my own question (partly):
"As the firmware is licensed under a restricted use license, it can not be included within the kernel sources. To enable the IPW2100 you will need a firmware image to load into the wireless NIC's processors." From http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/README.ipw2100.
And look at the firmware license!

--
Posters recognized by their sig,
Re:Open Source Driver + Firmware by david.given · 2004-03-10 05:22 · Score: 4, Informative

Is this a full driver or is the firmware a subtle way of making a closed-source driver?
That's a rather more complicated question than you might think.
The way most wireless cards work is that there's some radio hardware, hooked up to a microprocessor on the card that handles the low-level 802.11 frames, and some host software that talks to the microprocessor.
The microprocessor --- which tends to be an embedded ARM, these days --- runs a tiny nearly-an-operating-system out of flash or RAM. If RAM, then you need to download the microprocessor's code when you power up the card. That's the firmware.
This has a number of advantages: it means that the crucial, real-time processing is done with a custom processor that doesn't have to worry about running user code; it means that the vendor can change the hardware without having to change the driver, because the driver's just talking to a well-defined interface provided by the microprocessor; and it means that it's much easier to make cross-platform drivers.
It also means that the vendor can hide stuff in the firmware that they really, really don't want the user to play with. Such as the power, channel and timing settings that are mandated by the FCC.
I don't know if there are any wireless vendors out there who actually release source code to their firmware. (I'd be interested to find out if there are.) Which means that the answer to your question is both yes and no: the firmware's not open source, but the driver is.
Re:Open Source Driver + Firmware by Fluffy+the+Cat · 2004-03-10 05:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not really. Most hardware nowadays contains firmware (modern wireless cards are often just ARM cores attached to a radio transmitter), but in many cases it's in ROM or flash and you've never noticed. Older wireless cards with entirely open drivers (such as the orinocos) had similar quantities of firmware, but the cards shipped with it in flash. Requiring it to be loaded by the OS makes hardware implementation slightly easier, and you can upgrade the firmware along with the drivers without involving potentially risky reflashing.

Would you consider Linux closed-source because on most hardware it requires a closed-source BIOS or firmware in order to boot?

(Yes, I know about LinuxBIOS. It supports a subset of x86 hardware)

No WEP by gspr · 2004-03-10 04:31 · Score: 5, Informative

WEP currently no support
Notice how WEP support is not yet done.

Re:No WEP by michich · 2004-03-10 04:34 · Score: 3, Informative

WEP is weak. Use OpenVPN if you can.

Hardly Intel... by damieng · 2004-03-10 04:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

I fail to see how "Finally Intel has made their different announcements about Linux support for the WLAN part of the Centrino technology become true."

when the SourceForge web site clearly states in the first paragraph.

"This project was created to enable support for the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 (IPW2100) mini PCI adapter. This project is intended to be a community effort as much as is possible given some working constraints (mainly, no HW documentation is available)"

Sounds like Intel haven't helped at all and some enterprising folks have done their own. Kudos to them, shame on Intel.

And shame on Werner and Timothy for getting basic cursory facts right. Unless of course the SF website is failing to give credit to Intel.

--
[)amien

Re:Hardly Intel... by Otter · 2004-03-10 04:42 · Score: 2, Funny

That's like saying ACPI for linux isn't an intel contribution because it's a sourceforge project.
Oh, is that why I can't get my Athlon to power off with any kernel after 2.4.20?

--
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Re:Hardly Intel... by javatips · 2004-03-10 04:42 · Score: 5, Informative

My first reaction was the same as yours... But if you browse at the end of the page and hover your mouse on the maintainer name, you'll see that he has an Intel e-mail address.

So yes Intel is, kind of, supporting Linux driver for the Centrino chip as the pay the guy...

However, I don't beleive this is a priority for them. If it was so, they would have released something that is fully functional... What it seems to me is that they are paying one guy to do it and hope the OS community will jump in and help them out! I don't see any real corporate backing behind this project.

if only.... by thedude13 · 2004-03-10 04:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

broadcom would follow intel's lead and release a linux driver. while driverloader and ndiswrapper work, it would be nice to see the hardware vendor stop making crappy excuses (fcc regulations other stupid ones) about releasing a linux driver.

I don't get it by edbarrett · 2004-03-10 04:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

The contact email address is ipw2100adminlinuxintelco m, the readme says it's copyright intel, but the home page says

This project is intended to be a community effort as much as is possible given some working constraints (mainly, no HW documentation is available)

So intel is not releasing the necessary documentation for the hardware, but has set up a SF project for "The Open Source Community" to figure it out?

Re:I don't get it by Halthar · 2004-03-10 04:39 · Score: 4, Funny

Maybe they are truly in touch with open source projects everywhere, and when it comes to documentation simply said "screw it, someone else will write it!"
Re:I don't get it by MWelchUK · 2004-03-10 04:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

They probably can't release the documentation for some reason, however as long as there are a number of intel people on the project _with_ access to the documentation this isn't as huge a problem as it would otherwise be.

This allows the community to help stear the portions of the code that don't require the documentation and to help them properly tie the driver into Linux.

As long as the code isn't a complete mess it will also be possible to get some understanding of the workings of the chip from the code.

I agree that it is not ideal, however it's better than a binary-only driver.

Don't bother yet, its not finished by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-10 04:36 · Score: 4, Informative

TODO

- long/short preamble support
- enhance wireless extension support
- adhoc
- encryption (WEP)
- continue to add support for addtional SW RF kill switch implementations
- "shared" authentication
- transmit power control
- power states support (ACPI)

Yes you read that right. So is there anything this driver does do?

After promising and promising to support Linux we get this. A crappy not finished driver. I suppose I'm supposed to be happy that Intel finally started to work on this after like what, a year after we should have had support? Sorry Intel but screw off. I already bought a PCMCIA Wireless NIC. And I'm sure as heck not going to replace it with you crappy nic and unfinished drivers. Thanks for nothing. Next notebook I buy is going to be AMD powered.

Re:Don't bother yet, its not finished by Neophytus · 2004-03-10 04:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

and that's why it hasn't been announced apart to a list mainly inhabited by developers

Bzzt. Wrong. Look who's doing this. by petard · 2004-03-10 04:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

Read the copyright on the source code, and look at the contact info posted on the sf site. It's intel. (Hint: "Copyright 2003 - 2004 Intel Corporation" and the contact is jketreno AT linux.intel.com)

Just because they aren't loudly tooting their own horn by splashing "intel" all over the sf.net website doesn't mean they're not helping/having their people do the work. What you saw simply means they haven't been able to work out how to get the HW docs out the door to the community, and are being candid about this in the first sentence of their page.

And shame on you for making bad assumptions about helpful people, and unfairly criticizing an accurate news article.

I suppose I may have been trolled here, and I hate to bite, but this needs to be corrected :-)

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.sig: file not found

Re:Bzzt. Wrong. Look who's doing this. by damieng · 2004-03-10 05:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

Okay, I'll retract the statement "Sounds like Intel haven't helped at all" although I did mention at the end of my statement it could be that the SF site wasn't crediting intel with any assistance.

Frankly I think the rest of my posting stands. While it's obvious some people have put hard work into this I don't think Intel have met the promises covered in the previous stories.

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[)amien

RTFSource before you post by petard · 2004-03-10 04:46 · Score: 4, Informative

Copyright(c) 2003 - 2004 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Just because they've not put their name all over the site in no way makes this "not released by intel".

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.sig: file not found

Re:This is a great sign by Zakabog · 2004-03-10 04:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is a great sign, if Intel starts supporting all of their products under Linux, other vendors will follow suit, and it won't be long before you'll see Lindows boxes alongside the Macs at CompUSA!

Yeah I know pretty soon we might get some linux support from other companies! Like NVidia, 3Comm, Ceative Labs, ATI, Netgear, Linksys, man pretty soon I'm gonna be able to build a sweet linux computer!

*Looks at his own two linux computers*

Oh...

I'd actually be more excited about Intel's decision if they had any products I actually wanted. I don't know of any companies I'd buy from whose products don't work in linux one way or another. Sure some things might not work, but I haven't run into anything in the past 2-3 years that I couldn't get working in linux although setting up my ATI card was a real pain. There are even a few no name devices that I wouldn't expect to work, that just happened to have support since they use the same chipset as like 40 other no name devies.

You're missing reading comprhension skills by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-10 04:49 · Score: 2, Informative

Read the source:
Copyright(c) 2003 - 2004 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Look at the maintainer's email address. Now consider what you're missing.

Good news, but... by biendamon · 2004-03-10 04:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

...I'm curious why it took so long for this to finally happen. Intel knew, for a long time, that there was extensive interest.

The Centrino is a good chipset, and Centrino-based laptops are fairly popular. Even without the wireless support, I've been happy using a Linux-based Centrino laptop for the last six months. The lack of wireless access was the one thing that had been sticking in my craw.

Now, I'll be able to unequivocally recommend these laptops to friends who use Linux. This will mean more sales for Intel. This, I would think, would be considered a Good Thing (tm). So why the wait?

Re:Stealing Windows Driver by Gerald · 2004-03-10 04:52 · Score: 2, Informative

Have you tried capturing raw 802.11 frames with NdisWrapper? (Hint: Most Windows drivers don't support this, since NDIS doesn't provide a standard interface for it. Most Linux and FreeBSD drivers do.)

Wireless extensions by fdawg · 2004-03-10 04:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

Anyone know if this implementation uses wireless extensions? Will these drivers use iwconfig and the rest of wireless tool or will you have to use some proprietary intel (probably binary only) tools? If it doesnt use wireless extensions, all of the neat scripts that come with stock distributions (debian, redhat, etc) wont work without some modification.

Re:This couldn't be better timed... by RenatoRam · 2004-03-10 05:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Did you read past the first 3 lines on the website?

Go read the licenses: what company name do you read there?

On my screen FireFox renders seveal times the word "Intel"... but maybe It's just me.

They are releasing the specs and a semi-working beta to the community. Their developers AND the voluntary ones will improve the driver.

That's EXACTLY what linux users and developers have been asking for ages, i reckon.

It's a win-win situation: Intel gets a fully working and highly optimized driver for free and in a shorter time, and the community gets a GOOD driver for free.

Now tell us: what's wrong with Intel's approach, please.

--
Ciao, Renato

Re:Woo hoo by tedric · 2004-03-10 05:02 · Score: 4, Informative

You shouldn't have any trouble with the T41. At least my model works great. IBM (Germany) had a special offer including SuSE Pro 9 (the standard box). Additionally to that I got a special T40/T41 CD that repartitioned the harddrive (15GB Win XP, 45GB Linux ;)) and installed SuSE with all necessary modules. It went really great, no trouble at all.

Also check out www.linux-on-laptops.com. Especially for IBM laptops there are lots of pages out there describing linux installations for various distributions in-depth.

Btw: I ordered my T40p with the optional 802.11a/b/g card (standard is a/b) and installed FC1 - not because SuSE is bad, just because I'm used to RH. The card is manufactured by Philips and works just fine with the modules from madwifi (visit SourceForge). Well, with kernel 2.4.*, I still have some trouble with kernel 2.6.*.

Re:What about Broadcom? by j0hndoe · 2004-03-10 05:03 · Score: 2, Informative

Here's a source:

In general the following chipsets are supported:

* Broadcom
* Intel PRO/Wireless Lan (Centrino)
* Atheros
* Admtek 8211

Open Source?? by Stiletto · 2004-03-10 05:06 · Score: 2, Funny

If it's like many "open source with firmware" drivers, it's probably a lot like this:

unsigned char firmware[] = { 0x22, 0x45, ...[many thousands of bytes].... }; void driver(void) { run_firmware(firmware); }

Uh, yea, I'd consider that open source all right...

Re:Open Source?? by michich · 2004-03-10 05:09 · Score: 3, Informative

In a post to LKML James Ketrenos said this:

Yes, it is really firmware. It is loaded from disk as a block of data and passed to the card. The system CPU doesn't execute anything out of the firmware, nor does the firmware know anything about the kernel.
Re:Open Source?? by T5 · 2004-03-10 06:20 · Score: 4, Informative

Keyspan USB to serial converters are like this as well. This sparked a lot of debate on lkml on whether the firmware, clearly not open source, could be included in the kernel driver code. The upshot of that lengthy discussion was that yes, firmware can be bundled in the kernel code since it's not actually run by the host processor that's running the kernel.

*BSD Driver? by nurb432 · 2004-03-10 05:17 · Score: 4, Interesting

Thats really nice the released for linux, but how about us FBSD folks.. or are we out of luck on this one...

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---- Booth was a patriot ----

Re:*BSD Driver? by Imperator · 2004-03-10 07:33 · Score: 2, Informative

Well since they're giving you a closed firmware with an open interface, presumably you can code a driver to it. Or you can just port the Linux driver.

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not excited by asv108 · 2004-03-10 05:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

Only a year after there was an official announcement for linux drivers, which was later recanted, intel releases incomplete drivers. I'm sorry but Intel could of handled this situation a LOT better. I feel really sorry for the people who have had a "centrino" laptop for the past year and a useless wifi card.

When I purchased my X31 from IBM a year ago, instead of going for a wireless option, I bought the machine "wireless rdy" and put in my own linux compatible prism2 minipci card, purchased off ebay. Because of this incident, I will certainly stay away from purchasing any item from intel where linux support is promised in the near future.

Hopefully companies like Intel will start to realize that Desktop Linux is here and people who are decision makers & influencer's in IT make up a significant portion of the desktop linux populous.

Re:This is a great sign by indigeek · 2004-03-10 05:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm gonna be able to build a sweet linux computer!

This is something i don't understand. In India and many parts of Asia, due to duty structures (computer parts have lesser taxes than fully assembled systems etc) and due to proximity to china, it is cheaper to build your own computer than to buy it pre-built. So I have built all my computers myself - buying RAM from one shop and video cards from another.
My computer had an Intel i810 mobo when they just came out. They had reasonably bad Linux support(video would not work with Linuxes avbl. then) , this was in 99 I think.
But after that I have built myself atleast 3 computers, 1 intel and 2 AMD , and Redhat has worked straight out of the box. This is inspite of me buying the cheapest mobos available, with integrated everything, or going for the absolutely latest on others. On the otherhand, until I put in the manufacturer provided binary drivers, windows support has always been bad - No SVGA, no network etc.
Ofcourse, it might have something to do with the fact that sometimes I can put up with non-spectacular video performance (when I get totally bored reconfiguring XFree86 ), but still Linux supports more machines out of the box than windows from what I have seen- assuming that each different motherboard/cards etc are given equal weightage irrespective of how many of them get sold.

The experience is not different for myy friends either.

Open source? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-10 05:28 · Score: 4, Informative

More like an open-source interface to a closed-source firmware.
You still have to go here, agree to a EULA and download a binary image to be able to use this module (I found it humorous that Intel's download site admonished me for using Firefox on linux, and suggested I upgrade to IE6 or NS6).
You use the driver by doing:
modprobe ipw2100 firmware=/usr/share/firmware/ipw2100-1.0.fw
where ipw2100-1.0.fw is the current binary firmware image.

Re:Open source? by kju · 2004-03-10 06:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is utter nonsense. Prism54 is utilizing firmware as well, as do a bunch of other linux drivers. Every fricking wlan card out there has a firmware, it happens only that in the past most had the firmware flashed on the card / into the hardware, while nowadays the firmware is loaded by the driver into the card at runtime. Which is better, as upgrading the driver can (and will often) update the firmware too, without having to reflash first.

Somewhere you need to draw a line, and having firmware is nothing wrong but in fact often just necessary.
Re:Open source? by dmaxwell · 2004-03-10 07:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

At least the firmware approach means that the drivers will work on non-x86 arches as well. I realize that video cards are whole nother kettle of fish but it would be nice if video cards just exposed a 3D api and all the interesting stuff happened on the card itself. It would be more optimal that what nvidia does now. Yeah it would be nice if the entire piece of hardware was open but least this approach lets us treat the hardware as a periphreal and not a black box that gets chucked into the kernel.
Re:Open source? by cocotoni · 2004-03-10 07:57 · Score: 4, Funny

Pray tell, on which non-x86 arch are you going to use Intel Centrino drivers for the INTEL Centrino processor on the INTEL board?

The problem I have with Centrinos WLAN... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-10 06:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem I have with Centrinos WLAN is the fact that due to its embedded nature, I've yet to see any with antennas. I'd like to put a gain on my WiFi laptop around campus as the AP are far and wide. Why don't they make a standard jack for an antenna or something? It'd be quite useful other than being limited to "the AP inside the same room" sort of thing.

No specs? by tmasssey · 2004-03-10 07:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

From what I can tell, Intel is *not* releasing the specs.

Quote from the first page at http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/:

This project was created by Intel to enable support for the Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 (IPW2100) mini PCI adapter. This project is intended to be a community effort as much as is possible given some working constraints (mainly, no HW documentation is available) (Emphasis mine)

So in Intel's own words, they did not release the specs, and I can't find anything on the site that says different...

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Inspiring by TwistedSpring · 2004-03-10 07:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

Wow now this is interesting. Intel have decided that they're going to call on the massive contingent of Open Source developers for their Linux driver. This benefits them because they don't have to hire programmers or support the drivers and can outsource it to the community at large who will maintain it. Under license, they still own the drivers, but the public who want the drivers are developing them effectively for Intel.

Has there been an instance of this before? OEMs don't usually endorse open source dev projects for their hardware, but if more OEMs did do this then we'd see a huge amount of support for devices that are currently not compatible with various operating systems, and an extended development life for drivers for aging hardware. Obviously this method applies to not only "classic" open source OS's such as Linux, but Windows as well. After all, the OEM isn't selling the drivers, it's selling the hardware and firmware.

I'd love to see more manufacturers posting the source to their drivers and the developer documentation to allow their drivers to be improved and worked on by the willing open source community at large, while the OEM maintains endorsement and ownership of the developed software. It seems to me this method harms nobody and benefits all.

Re:Inspiring by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2004-03-10 09:14 · Score: 2, Interesting

Wow now this is interesting. Intel have decided that they're going to call on the massive contingent of Open Source developers for their Linux driver. This benefits them because they don't have to hire programmers or support the drivers and can outsource it to the community at large who will maintain it.

Better:

They open-sourced the driver proper, only keeping the firmware closed.

They're providing starter code and a contact guy who can look provide enough help with the proprietary stuff that the community doesn't need to worry about getting hung due to inaccessable info.

Short of opening the firmware this like the best support model yet.

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No Tresspassing! by BLKMGK · 2004-03-10 08:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

WEP on an AP also makes it crystal clear that you're not expecting "visitors" so any legal proceedings later on are much more likely to bear fruit. Kind of hard for someone to say they just "stumbled" upon your network when the network is encrypted by default and requires effort to access...

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Re:Does it work? by gyrojoe · 2004-03-10 16:31 · Score: 2, Informative

Despite the comments from many posters that it is "incomplete" it does indeed work. It seems like they are making the driver a priority too. I emailed James Ketrenos (the Intel developer listed on the page) about a segfault I got in the wireless tools (my fault mostly). His response was quite fast and very promising: "[the fix] may not make it into 0.30 today, but a fix should be in 0.31 tomorrow. Seems to me like the driver is progressing quickly and is somewhat of a priority for Intel.
Even if it uses binary firmware, this is still better than using ndiswrapper/DriverLoader to emulate the Windows driver.

Re:standards? by TeddyR · 2004-03-10 18:19 · Score: 3, Informative

instead of mouthing off, maybe linking to the LSB standards page that contains the specifications. Thing is, you probably mean theFilesystem Hierarchy Standard /etc/firmware may not be in either documents, but since it is used by MANY rpms, including the kernel-util rpms for microcode data it is the de-facto standard for binary firmware images that need to be accessed by device drivers at boot time....

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Intel Releases Linux Driver For Centrino WLAN

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