Intel Linux Driver Version 1.0 For Centrino WLAN

Werner Heuser writes "Intel has just released Linux driver version 1.0.0 for the Centrino PRO/Wireless 2100 chipset. Almost two years, since the first Centrino generation with Pentium-M Banias has reached the market, a stable issue of a native Open Source driver has become available. The Wireless LAN driver for the current Centrino generation with Pentium-M Dothan and PRO/Wireless 2200BG chipset is still at version 0.13. This driver is intented to support also the third generation of the Intel miniPCI WLAN adapter named PRO/Wireless 2915ABG. Though Intel intended these projects to be community efforts, there are some possible working constraints. Mainly, no hardware documentation is available."

Comments

Guess I'll have to upgrade

[swillden]

... when I have a few minutes with nothing better to do.

I've been using the 0.55 version of the ipw2100 drivers very happily for quite some time now. And I only upgraded to them from the 0.44 version because of an issue related to ACPI suspend/resume.

My hat's off to Intel for doing a great job on these drivers. Even the beta versions have been extremely usable for quite some time.

I'm posting this with my IBM Thinkpad T40, via WiFi using the ipw2100 version 0.55 driver on Linux 2.6.9. It's how I do all of my work (or non-work, as the case may be) these days.

Re:Excellent job

[Stevyn]

How many times does this have to be brought up? NVIDIA can't release all the information because they don't own it.

Hardly Free

[cjsnell]

Use of this driver requires that you download Intel firmware which is covered by a very non-free and restrictive license.

I urge you to write to Intel and let them know that you are dissatisfied with their license and that you want the ability to freely distribute their firmware.

Please note that nobody is asking them to open the source of their firmware--they just need to make it so that free operating systems can distribute their firmware without having to force their users to agree to this licensing.

Re:Hardly Free

[bconway]

I, as a home and corporate user, have no reason to redistribute their firmware. I will not be mailing them, sorry.

Re:Hardly Free

[iCEBaLM]

It is however in your best interest. If you write them in support of packagers who want to freely distribute the firmware then that allows you the ability to install a Free OS (Linux, OpenBSD, etc) and have your wifi work "out of the box" instead of having to download the firmware from intels website by some other means separately.

Sorry, but Intel Sucks

[DesScorp]

Go one way or the other. Either get us a proprietary driver that works RIGHT AWAY (as the article said, the Centrino chipset has been around for two years already. Microsoft wouldn't have stood for this kind of stonewalling), or make the drivers REALLY open source, firmware too. Intel has dicked us around for two years, and we're supposed to be grateful now? This is why I won't buy a Centrino book.

Re:Sorry, but Intel Sucks

[Txiasaeia]

What's your alternative, an Athlon notebook? My IBM X31 1.6GHz (Banias) notebook gets around 5 hours of battery life, 6 if I push it. It can do this running cold. Compare this with an AMD notebook that gets what, an hour and a half worth of battery life?

Rant and rave at Intel all you want - the Pentium-M is the best mobile processor ever made, full stop. Don't hate the hardware because you don't like the maker's policy towards OSS.

Re:Sorry, but Intel Sucks

[DAldredge]

No, chips derived from the ARM line of CPU's are some of the best mobile CPUs every made, it just that the Pentium-M is, currently, the best performing, in W/per unit of work, mobile CPU that runs windows.

Different CPU's are made for different things and blanket statements are almost always wrong in regards to CPU's

Re:Excellent job

[TiggsPanther]

They could release the information they do own. We don't need "all the information". We just need the basics like opcodes and register addresses. That information is not patentable (they're just numbers) and is not copyrightable (not creative). That information is simply a trade secret that nvidia CHOOSES to not give us, presumably because they're *ssholes. Nvidia can keep their precious licensed code; that's not the stuff we need to write our own driver.

Well in the updates to the interview that was previously mentioned here they do state that it's to do with the IP involved.
Plus the real issue probably isn't with the driver developers, probably more to do with management or even with IP lawyers.

Also it matters very little as to whether the trade secrets really need to be kept secret. I suspect that someone in their legal (or financial) department is saying that stuff "like opcodes and register addresses" are things that they can't release for free - even though that's information that they do own. And, sadly, they're the ones whose decisions tend to stick.

Yes, it sucks. But unfortunately big businesses still like to play the "Intellectual Property" game. Until that changes (Soon, please God, soon) then we're stuck with things happening this way.