Ubuntu Linux: Built-in apps get an "A", wireless support an "F" (CNET) [LWN.net]

Ubuntu Linux: Built-in apps get an "A", wireless support an "F" (CNET)

Posted Jan 4, 2008 22:46 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648)
Parent article: Ubuntu Linux: Built-in apps get an "A", wireless support an "F" (CNET)

How much of that "F" does Ubuntu really deserve, given the comparative lack of Wi-fi IHV driver support for Linux? I briefly scanned the article and recognized "ndiswrapper" somewhere. Need I say more?

Not meaning to impugn on the work done by the NDISWrapper developers, but, having used it (with a Broadcom/Linksys PCMCIA card prior to 2.6.17), it's not particularly newbie-friendly. I suppose Mr. O'Reilly would find flies in the ointment for most major distros these days whenever there's proprietary Wi-fi hardware involved. Just my observation from the gallery...

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Ubuntu Linux: Built-in apps get an "A", wireless support an "F" (CNET)

Posted Jan 4, 2008 22:54 UTC (Fri) by s_cargo (guest, #10473) [Link]

Oh, sure Ubuntu doesn't deserve the entire F for wireless, but neither do they deserve the
entire A for applications either. Just the way it is to be a Linux distribution...

Ubuntu Linux: Built-in apps get an "A", wireless support an "F" (CNET)

Posted Jan 5, 2008 0:38 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

The only people that deserve a 'F' for anything is Broadcom (which I beleive is the
manufacturer for the cardbus card he is trying to use with his laptop) for being the ones that
have absolutely shit for Linux driver support.

These guys make a crapload of money off of Linux every day. Hundreds of thousands of their
devices are sold and used in every possible embedded wireless devices imaginable.. network
NAS, routers, etc etc. The vast majority of which run Linux. They have Linux drivers for
years, for multiple platforms. So on and so forth.

Yet what has teh Linux developers gotten back from Broadcom for the millions of dollars they
make off of supporting Linux with proprietary drivers and selling devices destined for
Linux-based systems?

No source code, no documentation, no assisting developers that make their devices work in
Linux. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Nothing that I am aware of. Just EULAs and NDAs for people who
buy their proprietary drivers and binary blobs that Linux devs have to reverse engineer with a
'chinese wall' method.

Then people who make the mistake of choosing 'Dell Wireless' or purchasing a broadcom device
have nothing but heartache and irritation when they try to make their laptops or desktops work
with Linux and wireless.

And, ironicly, the very devices, the cheap access points, they are trying to connect too are
probably running very similar chipsets made by broadcom and more then likely are running Linux
themselves!

Such a waste. Every single person who has ever had trouble getting these sort of devices
working on Linux should be writing angry letters and making phone calls back to the original
manufactures (linksys, dlink, dell, etc) informing them that under no uncertain terms that
they consider the lack of Linux support a defect in their product.

There are inexpensive and high quality chipsets from other companies (ralink or intel, for
example) with much better track records and open source drivers that these manufacturers can
(and do, for many models) use in their stuff.

I understand that due to choices in the Linux development model there are issues with getting
very new hardware to work for normal people, so it would be forgivable if a manufacture won't
have their device supported in a easy way with Ubuntu 7.10 or whatever, but _dammit_ broadcom
does not even try.

Ubuntu Linux: Built-in apps get an "A", wireless support an "F" (CNET)

Posted Jan 5, 2008 1:27 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

Indirectly, you and I are arguing on the same side. My original post was partly inspired at how (1) Linux distros in general get judged (unfairly) for their lack of wireless driver support, and (2) Ubuntu is usually the "headline act" in this criticism due to its immense popularity as a Linux distro.

I agree wholeheartedly that the Wi-fi makers do too little to even acknowledge that Linux even exists.... Their claims of encryption export restrictions (or whatever it is) seem like lazy excuses.

Defending my own use of Broadcom/NDISWrapper - it was in autumn 2005 when I bought the card for a decrepit used IBM T23. I was naïve about who made the chipset for Linksys' cards, and they on sale. NDISWrapper was my only choice until the bcm43x driver stabilized. I've since migrated to an Intel 2100 chipset.

Ubuntu Linux: Built-in apps get an "A", wireless support an "F" (CNET)

Posted Jan 5, 2008 2:59 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Well absolutely.

I have no problem with people trying to get stuff working. None at all.

I fell into the broadcom trap myself when I purchased a Apple Ibook. I knew that the 'Apple
Airport' was prism device and worked fine under Debian, but I didn't realise (well I had a
inkling, but I didn't understand it all) that the 'Apple Airport Extreme' stuff was a entirely
different beast. Since it was PowerPC then ndiswrapper wasn't even a option. It was very
painful and I applaud the efforts of people getting those broadcom devices working on Linux
using native drivers.

And I've helped people in the past with ndiswrapper issues and broadcom devices on a few
different occasions. It's not the user's fault that they purchased a peice of hardware to be
used with Windows then later on wanted to use Linux only to find out it was poorly supported.

And for people purposely looking for devices to use with Linux lots of OEMs make it very
difficult. They do things like have XXXXXv1 being one device and XXXXXv1.1 being something
completely different. I've gone to stores looking for wifi devices and have seen no less then
THREE different revisions of wifi devices from the same manufacturer with the same name, same
box art, same feature set, same shelf, same price, no revision number on the box, but have
completely different chipsets. The only way I could tell the stupid things apart was to open
the box up look for any company names and the fact I found pictures of cards and with
discriptions chipsets online previous to going to the store. This is more then most people can
ever be expected to deal with.

Linux plus the consumer hardware market, especially with Wifi, sometimes is just a comedy of
errors.

Ubuntu Linux: Built-in apps get an "A", wireless support an "F" (CNET)

Posted Jan 5, 2008 19:06 UTC (Sat) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link]

I wonder how long it will be before the standard Linux WiFi hardware is the Marvell 88W8388,
used in the OLPC laptop.  It's an amazing piece of hardware, consisting of an entire SoC in
addition to the radio.  Really it's more like having a WiFi bridge than a classic WiFi "card".
And, of course, it works perfectly in Linux :-)