I am complaining about RFIDs in passports, not because I give a crap about them, but because the rush to get a passport *NOW* has disrupted my local *post office*, which had been a low-traffic, pleasant post office to use, and has become a nightmare because of all the damn paranoid passport people. What started this phenomenon? Please tell me Fox News didn't run a story on it.
"But honestly I think that googling for 10 min before buying is all you need to confirm that you won't run into this pb for the model you are about to buy. "
I don't want to be "about to buy" something before I know definitively that it will work for my application. If Googling can help with that, what are the search terms please? Googling for "802.11g works with linux" gets me a lot of information I already know: That devices with specific chipsets are better for us than others.
Sparking the gap between knowing what chipset you want, and knowing what to order and from where, to get that chipset, is what I've been after in this thread, and many others just like it. Once I got an answer: D-Link DWL-520. I was able to obtain one, but not before discovering that D-Link had changed the circuit.
Going from the 'chipset' direction is great if you already have the peripheral, and if you happen to be lucky.
>Also, anything with an Atheros chipset also works very well with the MadWifi drivers.
I knew that too. What I still *don't* know is, where to go to buy one, and exactly what to ask for in order to have some assurance that what I receive will in fact be Atheros based. My basic question is, and has been for some time, what do I need to buy in order to be sure it will work with Linux, and where do I buy it? Is there a vendor that actually makes guarantees based on chipset?
Starting from the chipset basically means "try one of every wi-fi card you can get your hands on and hope one of them works." Not everybody has the wealth or patience to do that.
>You're going about this incorrectly. If a piece of hardware works in one distribution, it will theoretically work in all.
I understand that very well. If the variety of distributions is what's scaring the manufacturers away, I hope they get over it.
But even though this thread has gone on for a while, I can't help but notice that few have given specific answers.
What Wi-fi card would you buy today? Not "what chipset would you like to have?" How would you identify it? How would you explain to a disinterested third party exactly what you need them to bring you?
>Wouldn't these chipset changes have made the cards unsuitable for your corporate needs even in Windows?
If the changes meant that the devices did not have any possibility of working under Windows at all, then yes. In the case of Linux compatability, that's exactly what happened. Same brand, same model, indistinguishable from the box or inventory item code. Totally different device.
"I decide which one of the WLAN chipsets I would like my adapter to be based on (since it determines the major features of the device), and then I search for adapters using it."
Buy one of every device in the store, and hope to find one that has your chipset? We actually did this once. Found one that was Prysm2. Bought the rest. Some turned out to be Broadcom.
"Usually the website of the driver maintainer, or the mailing list of the driver project, or the driver documentation are good places to look for list of adapters based on particular chipsets."
"Usually" == "Never" in this case.
Say I want an 802.11g PCI card that works with Ubuntu 6.06 on an ASUS motherboard. Say I have one chance to find this product, identify a vendor for it, and submit a purchase order. If it doesn't work I don't get another chance.
What exactly do I do? From where I sit, I am totally screwed, because this is actually not possible to do. And this is the problem.
For personal use, I am much more flexible. I know the situation. I know how to research. I know a couple of previous-generation products that I can probably find on Ebay fairly easily, and they have a benefit of being cheap, just because they are old and discontinued or whatever.
For professional use, for one thing, I don't want to work that hard. For another thing, I don't really have that luxury. For another thing, I don't need to give people more reasons to abandon linux.
>I guess for most people knowledgeable about Linux, this isn't a big issue - they know the answers or know where to get them.
For my personal needs, I definitely fit that description, am slightly willing to do trial-and-error, buy used items, really search for discontinued things, etc.
For my *professional* needs, it is a big problem, one that has led to linux being taken off the table for a project. While I appreciate being steered toward "RaLink" and "Atheros (not so great a solution!)", I also note that I can hardly submit a purchase order to a vendor for a "RaLink" network card. Knowing a part number should be enough, but we have been burned by this before. What is actually required is assurance (a guarantee would be nice) from a vendor that a specific product is serviceable in some version of Linux.
Someone suggested Edimax. I think it's neat that they affirm Linux support in their specs. I think it's less neat that a search for a retailer led me to a lot of UK and European distributors. I'm guessing the big US computer shops and chain stores don't sell Edimax.
I cannot submit purchase orders for Ebay, and "dirt cheap" is not the goal. I (and many others) need a vendor that (A.) asserts, if not guarantees, linux compatability and (B.) has a presence that will pass muster for corporate (and academic institution) purchasing requirements.
>all are ralink, and I own one of each of these devices, unless some kind of version-bump has changed the chipset
That is exactly the problem. Our organization has found compatable devices in the past, only to reorder by exact model number to receive incompatable units. It has happened twice with two manufacturers, and it contributed to linux being abandoned for a project.
Name, number, URL of a US vendor selling "Edimax?" Do they actually assert compatability, or is this another situation where the units on one order are compatabile, and the next ones are not?
The Edimax website does specify linux driver compatability (unprecedented as far as I know!), but does not offer a locator for retail outlets, nor do they offer a way to order.
>Trying to get an exhaustive list of all WLAN adapters supported under Linux is the wrong way to approach
I didn't ask for an exhaustive list, or any list really. I asked for a vendor and part number to order. Just one, with assurance from the vendor that the device works, it's fine if the stipulate Red Hat Enterprise Linux or whatever.
Who can I call, make a purchase order, and obtain wireless cards for deployment on linux? Trial and error doesn't work in that environment.
"This payed-with-credit-card trouble is pretty wierd, sometimes you can read they think it's suspicious if someone is paying with cash, and sometimes that it's suspicious if someone pays with a card. And I guess if we'd ask which payment method is less suspicious, that would be the most suspicious."
It is *always* suspicious that anyone would choose to travel *FROM* the relative utopia of the UK or Europe, *TO* the US. Why would anyone even consider doing such an insane thing?
I've asked a thousand times and never had answered very well:
List wireless cards, vendors, and prices that I can obtain today, which do work with Linux.
The compatability lists on the linux wireless sites are useless -- sure there are lots of cards that work, but many of them have been discontinued for years, some were only available in certain locales, and some, if you found the model, have had their chipsets changes.
I know of no resource that would allow me to successfully pursue wither of the following use cases:
1. I want to purchase an 802.11g device guaranteed by the vendor to work with some version of Linux.
2. I want to make a purchase order for a wireless device by vendor and part number, for a corpoarte deployment.
I consider my wireless cards to be rare and treasured artifacts. I didn't upgrade my notebook because I knew I was extremely lucky to get a laptop with a built-in Prysm2. The situation *sucks* far worse than the winmodem situation ever did.
I have one. I am sure it is legal for me to possess and use it. Why don't you cite the existence of an *illegal* one, and please specify, with the chapter and verse of law please, where and how it is illegal, and what, precisely, is it illegal to do with it?
"Why don't we just create a world wide class action law suit against companies or organizations that do not support independent OS architecture?"
The community is not even really asking for *support*; merely to not be explicitly suppressed.
I have a banking site that I must use, which uses the user agent to decide who may and who may not use the web site to pay their bills. I do not want "support" for my browser, I just want them to stop purposely trying to prevent me from using it. They do *more* work to try to suppress users than they would do to "support" them.
And any banking institution that has IT staff who consider it appropriate to use the User Agent string as part of security, should be approached with great suspicion anyway. This is not some small independent savings and loan -- it is Wells Fargo. The thing is, Wells Fargo's online banking system is pretty good. But their "Financial Services" division is nowhere near at the same level of competence. Because *I* owe *them* money in this case, it's not exactly like I can choose to walk away. So I sort of have to take it. I'm just waiting for them to accuse me of fraud because instead of using my normal browser user agent string ("Bond/007; UK; Licensed to Kill"), I change it to something close enough to Internet Explorer 6 to get me in. (Great security *there*, Wells Fargo.)
>Fair use doesn't give you the right to break the encryption on copyrighted works.
Cite chapter and verse, and underline the letter of the law that makes it illegal for the end user to decrypt what is encrypted. Cite this law, it does not even need to stipulate anything about "copyright."
Your statement is in terms of laws giving rights. But laws do not confer rights. Either the people have a right or they do not. A law can limit rights, or it can assert that people have rights and that they may not be abridged. It cannot grant rights. The people have *all* rights unless expressly limited.
What were the exact terms of the agreement before the laptops were sent? If there was no agreement, there is no way to compel the recipient to return the product. It is the sender's responsibility to avoid sending an item, addressed to an individual, that he means to retain.
Anything sent to you, addressed to you, is yours. If there is some contract that compels you to return it, then you must return it or be in breach. No such contract? No grounds to demand return of the merchandise.
>I'm far more worried about getting eaten by those damned a's and q's...:]
Learning to get early Poison Resistance and Speed will make you laugh at yourself for ever being worried about them.
L's and R's still bother me, if I let them. Most players make the mistake of using Genocide. I consider that to be a net balance at best, and I suspect it may be a net liability. You read that right -- I consider that going genoless may indeed not be so much a challenge as a benefit. I've written on the subject many times on r.g.r.n. and elsewhere, and I let the success of my characters stand in evidence.
>If you are already running windows (i.e. paid for it) there is no reason to run linux.
I have reasons. One of those reasons is that I prefer to use the framebuffer console, at least on my hardware, over any other console environment I have ever used -- and I cannot duplicate this in Windows. I'm not interested in hearing about how I can "almost" do the same thing in rxvt or whatever, because it simply is not true.
Other reasons involve the easy availability of many types of software that either require work to put on Windows, or else, Windows versions are not as well-developed as linux versions.
Given the choice, I want to have a linux box as my primary desktop, I like for it to be bootable into Windows, and I also like to have a VMWare license. Along with this, I like having a Windows XP notebook, or these days, my Macbook. The main aggravations with Linux have been the inability to send faxes (I've never had a built-in modem with linux support, and I totally refuse to buy one just for this, and even more totally refuse to carry one around while travelling), and also, I find it to be a bit more pleasant when dealing with stuff like hotel Wi-Fi.
So basically, I need my Linux box (might literally kill you if you try to take it away), but I also need a mainstream machine; preferably a portable one, preferably a Mac notebook.
"I think another point of hybrids is for commuters in stop & go traffic. Less wear and tear on the transmission."
There is a real risk with a Prius -- pedestrians do NOT look when they don't hear you coming. It is very, very common for people to step right in front of a Prius because it is so quiet.
Seen this myself, driving a rental, and riding with friends.
Slashdot Mirror
>People complaining about RFIDs in passports
I am complaining about RFIDs in passports, not because I give a crap about them, but because the rush to get a passport *NOW* has disrupted my local *post office*, which had been a low-traffic, pleasant post office to use, and has become a nightmare because of all the damn paranoid passport people. What started this phenomenon? Please tell me Fox News didn't run a story on it.
>Amazing. Tell me, how big a pain has iTunes been now?
Well, Itunes did require me to deal with a woman who was literally sent into a murderous rage when it erased her ipod without warning.
"But honestly I think that googling for 10 min before buying is all you need to confirm that you won't run into this pb for the model you are about to buy. "
I don't want to be "about to buy" something before I know definitively that it will work for my application. If Googling can help with that, what are the search terms please? Googling for "802.11g works with linux" gets me a lot of information I already know: That devices with specific chipsets are better for us than others.
Sparking the gap between knowing what chipset you want, and knowing what to order and from where, to get that chipset, is what I've been after in this thread, and many others just like it. Once I got an answer: D-Link DWL-520. I was able to obtain one, but not before discovering that D-Link had changed the circuit.
Going from the 'chipset' direction is great if you already have the peripheral, and if you happen to be lucky.
>Also, anything with an Atheros chipset also works very well with the MadWifi drivers.
I knew that too. What I still *don't* know is, where to go to buy one, and exactly what to ask for
in order to have some assurance that what I receive will in fact be Atheros based. My basic question
is, and has been for some time, what do I need to buy in order to be sure it will work with Linux, and
where do I buy it? Is there a vendor that actually makes guarantees based on chipset?
Starting from the chipset basically means "try one of every wi-fi card you can get your hands on and hope one of them works."
Not everybody has the wealth or patience to do that.
>You're going about this incorrectly. If a piece of hardware works in one distribution, it will theoretically work in all.
I understand that very well. If the variety of distributions is what's scaring the manufacturers away, I hope they get over it.
But even though this thread has gone on for a while, I can't help but notice that few have given specific answers.
What Wi-fi card would you buy today? Not "what chipset would you like to have?" How would you identify it? How would you explain to a disinterested third party exactly what you need them to bring you?
>Wouldn't these chipset changes have made the cards unsuitable for your corporate needs even in Windows?
If the changes meant that the devices did not have any possibility of working under Windows at all, then yes.
In the case of Linux compatability, that's exactly what happened. Same brand, same model, indistinguishable
from the box or inventory item code. Totally different device.
>Just buy an Atheros one.
You *can not* simply walk into a computer store and ask for "an Atheros chipset wi-fi card."
How does that law differentitate my decrypting the same DVD with my set-top player, with WinDVD, or with libdecss, for instance?
If merely using the third item is a crime, so it is for the first two. Is there any case law that clarifies this rule?
"I decide which one of the WLAN chipsets I would like my adapter to be based on (since it determines the major features of the device), and then I search for adapters using it."
Buy one of every device in the store, and hope to find one that has your chipset? We actually did this once. Found one that was Prysm2. Bought the rest. Some turned out to be Broadcom.
"Usually the website of the driver maintainer, or the mailing list of the driver project, or the driver documentation are good places to look for list of adapters based on particular chipsets."
"Usually" == "Never" in this case.
Say I want an 802.11g PCI card that works with Ubuntu 6.06 on an ASUS motherboard. Say I have one chance to find this product, identify a vendor for it, and submit a purchase order. If it doesn't work I don't get another chance.
What exactly do I do? From where I sit, I am totally screwed, because this is actually not possible to do. And this is the problem.
For personal use, I am much more flexible. I know the situation. I know how to research. I know a couple of previous-generation products that I can probably find on Ebay fairly easily, and they have a benefit of being cheap, just because they are old and discontinued or whatever.
For professional use, for one thing, I don't want to work that hard. For another thing, I don't really have that luxury. For another thing, I don't need to give people more reasons to abandon linux.
>I guess for most people knowledgeable about Linux, this isn't a big issue - they know the answers or know where to get them.
For my personal needs, I definitely fit that description, am slightly willing to do trial-and-error, buy used items, really search for discontinued things, etc.
For my *professional* needs, it is a big problem, one that has led to linux being taken off the table for a project. While I appreciate being steered toward "RaLink" and "Atheros (not so great a solution!)", I also note that I can hardly submit a purchase order to a vendor for a "RaLink" network card. Knowing a part number should be enough, but we have been burned by this before. What is actually required is assurance (a guarantee would be nice) from a vendor that a specific product is serviceable in some version of Linux.
Someone suggested Edimax. I think it's neat that they affirm Linux support in their specs. I think it's less neat that a search for a retailer led me to a lot of UK and European distributors. I'm guessing the big US computer shops and chain stores don't sell Edimax.
>You can grab those off of EBay dirt cheap
I cannot submit purchase orders for Ebay, and "dirt cheap" is not the goal. I (and many others) need a vendor that (A.) asserts, if not guarantees, linux compatability and (B.) has a presence that will pass muster for corporate (and academic institution) purchasing requirements.
>all are ralink, and I own one of each of these devices, unless some kind of version-bump has changed the chipset
That is exactly the problem. Our organization has found compatable devices in the past, only to reorder by exact model number to receive incompatable units. It has happened twice with two manufacturers, and it contributed to linux being abandoned for a project.
>Edimax uses ralink and are a reasonable price.
Name, number, URL of a US vendor selling "Edimax?" Do they actually assert compatability, or is this another situation where the units on one order are compatabile, and the next ones are not?
The Edimax website does specify linux driver compatability (unprecedented as far as I know!), but does not offer a locator for retail outlets, nor do they offer a way to order.
>Trying to get an exhaustive list of all WLAN adapters supported under Linux is the wrong way to approach
I didn't ask for an exhaustive list, or any list really. I asked for a vendor and part number to order. Just one, with assurance from the vendor that the device works, it's fine if the stipulate Red Hat Enterprise Linux or whatever.
Who can I call, make a purchase order, and obtain wireless cards for deployment on linux? Trial and error doesn't work in that environment.
"This payed-with-credit-card trouble is pretty wierd, sometimes you can read they think it's suspicious if someone is paying with cash, and sometimes that it's suspicious if someone pays with a card. And I guess if we'd ask which payment method is less suspicious, that would be the most suspicious."
It is *always* suspicious that anyone would choose to travel *FROM* the relative utopia of the UK or Europe, *TO* the US.
Why would anyone even consider doing such an insane thing?
I've asked a thousand times and never had answered very well:
List wireless cards, vendors, and prices that I can obtain today, which do work with Linux.
The compatability lists on the linux wireless sites are useless -- sure there are lots of cards that work, but many of them
have been discontinued for years, some were only available in certain locales, and some, if you found the model, have had their
chipsets changes.
I know of no resource that would allow me to successfully pursue wither of the following use cases:
1. I want to purchase an 802.11g device guaranteed by the vendor to work with some version of Linux.
2. I want to make a purchase order for a wireless device by vendor and part number, for a corpoarte deployment.
I consider my wireless cards to be rare and treasured artifacts. I didn't upgrade my notebook because I knew I was extremely
lucky to get a laptop with a built-in Prysm2. The situation *sucks* far worse than the winmodem situation ever did.
>Is there a legal WMV decoder for linux?
I have one. I am sure it is legal for me to possess and use it. Why don't you cite the existence of an *illegal* one, and please specify, with the chapter and verse of law please, where and how it is illegal, and what, precisely, is it illegal to do with it?
"Why don't we just create a world wide class action law suit against companies or organizations that do not support independent OS architecture?"
The community is not even really asking for *support*; merely to not be explicitly suppressed.
I have a banking site that I must use, which uses the user agent to decide who may and who may not use the web site to pay their bills.
I do not want "support" for my browser, I just want them to stop purposely trying to prevent me from using it. They do *more* work to try to suppress users than they would do to "support" them.
And any banking institution that has IT staff who consider it appropriate to use the User Agent string as part of security, should be approached with great suspicion anyway. This is not some small independent savings and loan -- it is Wells Fargo. The thing is, Wells Fargo's online banking system is pretty good. But their "Financial Services" division is nowhere near at the same level of competence.
Because *I* owe *them* money in this case, it's not exactly like I can choose to walk away. So I sort of have to take it. I'm just waiting for them to accuse me of fraud because instead of using my normal browser user agent string ("Bond/007; UK; Licensed to Kill"), I change it to something close enough to Internet Explorer 6 to get me in. (Great security *there*, Wells Fargo.)
>Fair use doesn't give you the right to break the encryption on copyrighted works.
Cite chapter and verse, and underline the letter of the law that makes it illegal for the end user to decrypt what is encrypted. Cite this law, it does not even need to stipulate anything about "copyright."
Your statement is in terms of laws giving rights. But laws do not confer rights. Either the people have a right or they do not. A law can limit rights, or it can assert that people have rights and that they may not be abridged. It cannot grant rights. The people have *all* rights unless expressly limited.
What were the exact terms of the agreement before the laptops were sent? If there was no agreement, there is no way to compel the recipient to return the product. It is the sender's responsibility to avoid sending an item, addressed to an individual, that he means to retain.
Anything sent to you, addressed to you, is yours. If there is some contract that compels you to return it, then you must return it or be in breach.
No such contract? No grounds to demand return of the merchandise.
>I'm far more worried about getting eaten by those damned a's and q's ... :]
Learning to get early Poison Resistance and Speed will make you laugh at yourself for ever being worried about them.
L's and R's still bother me, if I let them. Most players make the mistake of using Genocide. I consider that to be
a net balance at best, and I suspect it may be a net liability. You read that right -- I consider that going genoless
may indeed not be so much a challenge as a benefit. I've written on the subject many times on r.g.r.n. and elsewhere,
and I let the success of my characters stand in evidence.
>Maybe your KVM switch is an old one or there's something wrong with it (more likely maybe?).
I've seen PS2 KVM's really confuse the XFree mouse driver. When I used one, GPM with a "reconnect" setting helped, but complicated the XFree config.
>If you are already running windows (i.e. paid for it) there is no reason to run linux.
I have reasons. One of those reasons is that I prefer to use the framebuffer console, at least on my hardware, over any other console environment I have ever used -- and I cannot duplicate this in Windows. I'm not interested in hearing about how I can "almost" do the same thing in rxvt or whatever, because it simply is not true.
Other reasons involve the easy availability of many types of software that either require work to put on Windows, or else, Windows versions are not as well-developed as linux versions.
Given the choice, I want to have a linux box as my primary desktop, I like for it to be bootable into Windows, and I also like to have a VMWare license. Along with this, I like having a Windows XP notebook, or these days, my Macbook. The main aggravations with Linux have been the inability to send faxes (I've never had a built-in modem with linux support, and I totally refuse to buy one just for this, and even more totally refuse to carry one around while travelling), and also, I find it to be a bit more pleasant when dealing with stuff like hotel Wi-Fi.
So basically, I need my Linux box (might literally kill you if you try to take it away), but I also need a mainstream machine; preferably a portable one, preferably a Mac notebook.
Oh, they don't want you to *kill* them. They simply want you to *injure* them. Then they retire, while you pay for it.
"I think another point of hybrids is for commuters in stop & go traffic. Less wear and tear on the transmission."
There is a real risk with a Prius -- pedestrians do NOT look when they don't hear you coming.
It is very, very common for people to step right in front of a Prius because it is so quiet.
Seen this myself, driving a rental, and riding with friends.