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The Battle for Wireless Network Drivers

Posted by timothy on from the mind-the-nazgul dept.

An anonymous reader points out this Jem Matzan article "about the pain Linux and BSD programmers have in trying to obtain/write device drivers for various wireless cards," writing: This article also has a fairly detailed explanation of how wireless firmwares and drivers work. Two of the manufacturers are actively working with the FOSS community without requiring an NDA."

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  1. As someone that has been there by mycal · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Trying to develop wireless 802.11 interfaces for embedded platforms I agree that it is a total pain in a arse. I even knew people that I worked with before at broadcom and couldn't get them to kick down the Software API. We finally got a Philips BGW200 system working and that wasn't easy either since even after filling out NDAs we got messed around for a few months trying to get the right documentation.

    But now it does seem that Atmel is working with people, and accourding to the article so is raylink.

    What you can do to help is if you have choice, support these guys when you have to buy a wireless adapter even if it is a few bucks more.

    -M