Ralink drivers

Posted Aug 24, 2006 14:44 UTC (Thu) by kl (guest, #36963)
In reply to: Ralink drivers by drag
Parent article: Free drivers aren't enough

> But the bigger reason probably is because the Broadcom
> hardware is much much much more common as being sold with
> most laptops and other devices. Getting the broadcom
> driver into the kernel probably more then doubled or
> tripled the amount of different 802.11g devices that
> Linux supported in one big swoop.

Sadly, bcm43xx depends on non-redistributable firmware,
which makes issue complicated for less advanced users.

> I imagine getting it so all those ndiswrapper users
> to wean themselves off of depending on crappy windows
> drivers was a pretty high priority. Combine that with
> nvidia propriatory drivers people are starting to get
> the notion that open source model doesn't work for
> hardware (which itself is laughable idea.. but the
> impression is often has much more impact then actual
> reality)

Looking at the Ralink case one could also get impression
that open-sourcing driver and providing documentation for
hardware isn't worth anything. This is very sad --
most supportive and open company has rather depressing
quality drivers.

> Why the Intel Video drivers are significant?

I haven't said it isn't significant; I agree with rest
of your comment -- I would go with Intel.

I just wanted to point to the fact that Intel could do
a bit more. This is about maintainability -- it still
isn't great.

> You cannot not buy a video device. Your desktop is
> worthless without one.

Sorry, but I have to note that my desktop has been
TTY for about last 10 years and this isn't going to
change. ;-)

On the other hand my friends would like to run X more
often than I do, so after many years of recommending
old radeons 7xxx-9250 I'll now say to go intel all the
way. That is improvement, indeed.

Ralink drivers

Posted Aug 24, 2006 21:40 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

""Sorry, but I have to note that my desktop has been
TTY for about last 10 years and this isn't going to
change. ;-)""

Ya still need a video card for that. :P

Personally I require 3d graphics because pretty much the only reason I use a computer at home is to play around with video games and make art stuff. That's about it.

""Looking at the Ralink case one could also get impression
that open-sourcing driver and providing documentation for
hardware isn't worth anything. This is very sad --
most supportive and open company has rather depressing
quality drivers.""

Maybe you could get that impression, but I can tell you right now that Ralink has directly benifited from open sourcing drivers. Now if their original drivers didn't suck so much it would of worked out better.

But its working out for them.

For example they are getting good drivers that support the new hardware they are making. This makes their stuff more attractive to people making embedded devices that use Linux. And I know that they sold a number of devices specificly because the Linux support, even if it's not in the mainline kernel yet. That other person buying the USB ralink stuff for their ibook isnt' the only one. I've seen many people do it.

Ralink drivers

Posted Aug 25, 2006 0:22 UTC (Fri) by wookey (guest, #5501) [Link]

Yep, both the wireless cards I've bought recently have been ralink, specifically because of the free software drivers. But as the OP pointed out , this hasn't been quite the smooth and painless experience I was hoping for due to the drivers being out of tree, so a fair amount of dicking about is needed every time I upgrade a kernel on either machine. Each time a new kernel comes out I hope to see rt2500/2570 drivers in mainline and am disappointed. This seems to be a case of 'events', but it really would be nice to see it sorted soon.

I hope ralink can detect the increased sales they've had to free software people, both for personal use and for embedded projects.