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Wireless Networking Software Hardware Linux

Explaining WLAN Chips' Poor Linux Support 218

Posted by timothy from the holding-the-reins dept.
morcheeba writes "Kernel Traffic is reporting (mirror mirror list) that 'Some WLAN Chip Specs Secret To Protect Military Communications.' While this is stretching it a bit -- these radios are generally limited to a narrow frequency range and few modulation types -- software can cause illegal radio operation, especially when the laws vary by country. Is Linux support for 802.11g and Centrino chipsets going to be delayed by manufacturers afraid of FCC harassment? An interesting discussion on the future of Openness in radio chipsets." Interesting comments from Alan Cox in here about just how flexible some of these chips are.
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Explaining WLAN Chips' Poor Linux Support More

Explaining WLAN Chips' Poor Linux Support

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  • I thought it was just about money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @01:42PM (#6009351)
    If 95%+ of your market will be Windows users, it might make financial sense to just worry about that 95% and develop support for them.
    • If that 95% wants 100% interoperability, failure to support the other 5% can be costly.

      • If that 95% wants 100% interoperability

        How will advocates convince home users (a large chunk of that 95%) to want to interoperate with something they will never buy?

        • Re:Promotion? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by ocelotbob ( 173602 )
          Simple. More and more of that 95% is actually purchasing said product, even if they don't know it. Linux is fairly significant in the embedded market, with products like TiVO using it to run everything. Explain to the user that they can't use their broadband/wireless setup to pull listings because companies like Intel won't release the specs, and more people are going to be upset and ask for answers.

          Though this whole thing seems silly to me anyways. Why don't the broadband chipset makers just provide the s

          • Providing firmware and the code to load it is insufficient to write a working Linux driver. The driver should be able to communicate with the firmware to transfer data and configure the device. That's what is missing and not the firmware. In fact, the firmware can be extracted in many cases from Windows drivers.

        • Re:Promotion? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:19PM (#6009709)
          How will advocates convince home users (a large chunk of that 95%)

          Home users are not the issue here (and not the largest part of the 95% anyways). Businesses that may have, internally, 99% of their hardware running windows and 1% and growing running something else may choose another manufacturer's product because it supports 100% of thir machines. All you need to loose is one big sale and it would have been worthwhile to pay a developer a few thousand dollars to write a Linux driver. Are you saying companies should give up on trying to maximize profits, and start shooting for 95% instead?
    • It's really not that expensive, if you capture one large customer it's probably worth it. Cisco/Aironet has one coder who does the driver and support software for Linux and one primary tester who spends a lot of his time on testing the Linux stuff. These two together probably make somewhere in the $200K range when benifits are added in, not a whole lot when yearly sales are around $100 million. In addition there is a community developed driver made from resources that Cisco/Aironet made available to an outs
    • I know you are just trolling, but this is over-generalization.. It really depend on how big the remaining 5% is vs how much it would cost to support them. It may be profitable.
    • If you make it only possible to use your products on Windows, it isn't surprising that 95% of your market is on Windows.

      If your "95%" figure is supposed to refer to the fraction of desktop users using Windows within the population, your number unsubstantiated and probably erroneous. Microsoft's market share is usually overestimated because many desktop uses of other operating systems aren't counted towards those other operating systems, many non-desktop uses of Windows are counted as Windows users, and ma
      • If you make it only possible to use your products on Windows, it isn't surprising that 95% of your market is on Windows.

        But if 95% of your market is Windows, it doesn't make sense to make it possible to use your products with other operating systems.

        It becomes a vicios circle, a chicken-and-egg problem if you will. Someone, some day, has to break it, but it's not easy to convince people to do so. I can almost guarantee that the first people to do that (someone pointed out Aironet?) will see a significan

    • Exactly (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FreeLinux ( 555387 )
      It's all about the money. People seem to be unwilling to accept that Linux is such a tiny segment of users, that it is simply not worth the effort for a hardware manufacturer to develop a Linux driver, let alone multiple drivers for Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, Gentoo, Debian, etc. with kernel versions 2.4.1, 2.4.8, 2.4.12, 2.4.18, 2.4.21 etc.

      These same poeple also refuse to see that the chip manufacturers make their money by selling the chips and the software that drives them. Releasing the chip specs, in man

  • 6 months (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nevermodded5 ( 671934 )
    And this won't be an issue

  • eh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by revmoo ( 652952 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMmeep.ws> on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @01:51PM (#6009450) Homepage Journal

    What people need to realize is that nothing in software can be secure. It is far to easy to crack. You may have 100 developers working on a secure WiFi driver, but there are thousands of bored hackers out there waiting to tear it apart. If something needs to be secure, do it in hardware.

    On a side note, I've not had any trouble getting my WiFi hardware to work on my slackware laptop, but I understand that some chipsets can be more difficult to setup than others.

    • Could you explain this to us clueless types?...

      Why would hardware be more secure than software, when (if my facts are straight) some hardware solutions are merely software hard-coded on the chip? By your rationale, an OpenBSD firewall is (by default) less secure than a Linksys firewall.

      This is a serious question from someone who wants to learn. :-)

      -sid

      • Re:eh (Score:1, Informative)

        by nenolod ( 546272 )
        ...Actually... Linksys doesnt make firewalls. They make shitty NAT appliances. If you want firewalling, then openbsd is an option. If you want it done right, then using ACL on a Cisco 2610 is a better option. And if you're using Cable or DSL and calling that box with linksys or netgear or whatever on it a "router", then you need to have the crap knocked out of you with a cluebat.

        Another issue about these NAT appliances made by linksys is... how secure is NAT when dumbasses enable port forwarding? Port forw

        • Re:eh (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Eneff ( 96967 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:38PM (#6009883)
          Oh wait, I have an idea!

          Let's require everyone to spend a week learning fundamentals of Unix and 500 bucks and another week putting together OpenBSD-compliant parts (not to mention the day or two researching what exactly will and will not work on BSD) just to give up because they can't figure out why the fuck EverQuest won't work! (Adknowledged, the real problem is that most consumer programs were developed with a direct connection and a modem in mind. Guess what? That's irrelevant.)

          Yeah, sounds REAL swell.

          Yes, Those Netgear and LinkSys boxes are really routers. They really work. Until you can tell me how to get a wireless solution up and running with BSD for an hour's work and under 150 dollars, your argument is irrelevant.

        • Re:eh (Score:2, Interesting)

          by nolife ( 233813 )
          Not that the cheaper home routers are flawless but they are indeed routers and many are indeed firewalls. Not as configurable as an extra machine but they are not just blind NAT forwarders opened up to the world. You may want to go out and actually look at some of the models.

          how secure is NAT when dumbasses enable port forwarding?

          You can do the same thing with your BSD firewall. This is a function of how the USER wants it setup, not a deficiency of the firewall.

          Cable or DSL goons do not know how t
        • You're a moron.

          You speak of 'ACL' as if it was some kind of 'thing' which mysteriously makes 'other things' better. You also seem to have absolutely no idea how any of the products you're recommending over the generic crappy 200 buck NAT devices (which, by the way, actually do suck. but not for the reasons you're suggesting.)

          A Cisco 2610 is not only on the virge of planned obsolecence (at the very least, Cisco is advising that you buy the 2620 instead, as it has a 100 megabit ethernet port, as opposed t

      • Well, even software coded on a chip is at least a little more of a barrier from people tampering with your software, then distributing it as a driver that people can easily inspect.

        And anyone that thinks linksys NAT appliances are secure is nuts. Just from looking at my own network, I've been able to discover multiple vulnerabilities in my linksys router, such as it automatically forwarding SMB ports without asking and without an option to disable(yes I've informed linksys of such, no they aren't doing an

        • And anyone that thinks linksys NAT appliances are secure is nuts.

          My Linksys NAT is totally secure. In fact I dare you to try and crack it. To help you out, I've got portforwarded ports 22 and 21 to OpenSSH and pureftpd running on a Linux box. The IP address for it is 192.168.1.1. Good luck, I look forward to seeing your pathetic failed attempts in my SNMP logs.

          • Ha! I'm more than up to the challenge! I am the master hacker.

            revmoo@davinci:~$ssh -l hax0r 192.168.1.1
            hax0r@endor's password:
            hax0r@endor $ ./apt
            Linux kmod + ptrace local root exploit by


            => Simple mode, executing /usr/bin/id >
            /dev/tty
            sizeof(shellcode)=95
            => Child process started..........
            => Child process started..........
            => Child process started..........
            => Child process started.+ 19606
            uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=102(ssh),10(wheel)
            - 19606 ok!
            root@endor root #

      • Could you explain this to us clueless types?...

        Why would hardware be more secure than software, when (if my facts are straight) some hardware solutions are merely software hard-coded on the chip?

        Consider the difference between a "winmodem" (some of which are little more than a codec on a card) and a modem that has its own DSP and microcontroller. You could write a driver for a winmodem that would do whatever you want (including getting a true 56 kbps out of it, which the FCC wouldn't like), but you'r

    • Well... they can't do that... because that would require actual work... and... that isn't plausible for major conglomerates. Since a majority of the users of these cards run windows, which is insecure anyway, they figure their cards dont really need to be secure as well.

      Plus... if they do it with hardware... then people will be suspicious about privacy...

    • Re:eh (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yours is not a 802.11g, is it?

    • Re:eh (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Saint Stephen ( 19450 )
      If you believe all systems are crackable, how about this theory:

      The problem of breeding humans who do not wish to commit havoc is of equal difficulty to the problem of creating uncrackable systems. (I.E., both are nearly impossible.)

      Therefore, it is equally useful to spend one's time trying to convince people to "just not be an asshole" as it is securing systems. This cuts both ways -- privacy and security. I once made this statement in defense of things like Hailstorm -- the fact that the government/o

  • prism2 only! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drwho ( 4190 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @01:52PM (#6009466) Homepage Journal
    I am not the only one unhappy with the very poor support of linux by many wifi chip vendors. Intersil seems to be the only one even close to being open, and you have to sign all sorts of agreements to get the specs (legally). My understanding of this is that a lot of the functions are being moved from the chip hardware to system software, so it's not just a device driver required to use these newer cards. Vendors don't want everyone to see their programming.


    The prism2 were the first really popular wireless cards, partly because of low cost but also because of the ability to write drivers for them. I wish other manufacturers wouldn't be so reticent about their support. I actually prefer it if they keep the cards smart and the systems dumb, because it increases portability and compatibility. It probably adds to the cost though.

  • Time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by insecuritiez ( 606865 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @01:53PM (#6009469)
    When I went wireless on my Linux laptop about a year ago the only card I could get supported was the Lucen Orinoco. It's a great card. But now, many months later there is the WLAN project [linux-wlan.com] and many many cards are supported. The future will be the same. More support is coming. The major problem I see though is the manufaturers. They write drivers for windows. Most of them arn't about to write them for linux. Meaning that every piece of hardware will be a few months behind while a group of dedicated programers do the dirty work for the company.

    • Re:Time (Score:4, Interesting)

      by L7_ ( 645377 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:01PM (#6009533)
      why *should* card companies spend money to write drivers for linux when there are going to be enthusiasts that do it for them?

      It makes no sense from a company viewpoint, other than to get the support from the 5% of people that are using thier cards with linux. But even so, if an independent driver is written, those people using linux are still going to be buying the company's cards with no out of pocket expense to the company.

      It's kinda messed up.

      • Re:Time (Score:5, Insightful)

        by insecuritiez ( 606865 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:07PM (#6009588)
        Because the company gets respect and it's name out there amonge a group of power users and frequent buyers. Look at NVidia. They sure get a lot of coverage on Slashdot. Much of this is due to their great Linux drivers. If they made great cards that wern't supported or had poor/shotty support many fewer Slashdot readers would care one witt about what NVidia does. When Apple embraced open source all of a sudden they got a whole second army of geeks following. Why does it make sense to write drivers in support of linux? Because the 5% of the people that will use those products have a lot of influence in a much larger comunity. (IT, business settings)

        • Re:Time (Score:3, Informative)

          by cjsnell ( 5825 )
          IMHO, there's a reason for the good NVidia Linux drivers and that is the demand for 3-D capabale graphics workstations running Linux--the kind that movie studios and engineering firms use. I think the geek/Slashdot community's adoration of NVidia is a side effect of their market-driven choice, not the reason for their choice.

          The only way that tech specs for wlan cards will be released is if there the financial benefits of their release justify the release.

          Chris
      • The problem is that the vendors won't release enough information about the chipset for the volunteers to write the drivers and now w/the DMCA I am sure many fear legal action for reverse engineering the card.
    • remember that these cards are only supported in the 2mbs and 11mbs group. The 22mbs and 54mbs are not supported yet.

      I have been happily using DLINK 650Ws for a few years now (w/the RICOH PCIPCMCIA bridge on my desktop).

      I would love to upgrade but I prefer a Linux-based setup for the WLAN for added control.

      • Re:Time (Score:3, Informative)

        by insecuritiez ( 606865 )
        It is funny you mention the Dlink 650+. This is the exact card I had when I decided to go wireless. I couldn't get it to work so I sold it and bought a Lucent Orinoco. But, a few months later I see people using the DLink line (650+ and others) on Linux without a problem. Of course not with the X2 support or the X4 (44mbs) with an upgraded firmware. But then DLink claimed double speed and I did a few experiments when I was using the 650+ in windows and I could not find a speed difference running between

        • Re:Time (Score:3, Informative)

          by epsworth ( 113887 )
          I think you may be confused between the 650 and 650+. Despite the similar names, they use entirely different chipsets. I think the 650 has very good Linux support, but I know for sure that the 650+ has major problems under Linux, since I bought two of them only to find they don't work!

          The 650+ uses the Texas Instruments ACX100 chipset, and they are not willing to release the necessary specs to write drivers for it. Check the ACX100 [sourceforge.net] project on sourceforge to get the details. The only known driver is a

          • Re:Time (Score:3, Informative)

            by amorsen ( 7485 )
            It is worse than you think. Some 650's use one chipset, some use another. One chipset works in Linux, one does not. If you buy one for Linux, you are effectively buying a lottery ticket.
        • I believe the 22Mbps cards are merely full duplex. You won't see any speed difference in normal downloads because you aren't needing full duplex. Get in an environment where you have multiple cards on the same channel and you'll see a difference. This is because the WIFI network is like an ethernet hub, everyone sees everyone else's traffic, so they contribute to the entire usage of the network.
          • This may be so but it still doesn't explain their 44mbps "4x" mode that you can upgrade to with a firmware upgrade. If 2x is only full duplex then my testing would not have seen an increas since I was testing maximum one-way bandwidth.

  • drivers take a little while (Score:5, Informative)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @01:53PM (#6009472)
    Linux drivers don't come from the Driver Fairy, they usually get written by volunteers. That takes a while: getting the specs, implementing the drivers, testing them, etc. And it usually only happens after the hardware is starting to sell. So, it may well take a year or two for Linux drivers to appear for a piece of hardware. If you want it to happen faster, volunteer yourself.

    Of course, a few manufacturers do ship their own Linux drivers. That's nice, but it isn't all that common yet. And many of the drivers that do ship from manufacturers are based on proprietary, commercial driver toolkits and have to be closed source.

    Centrino is a special case. Centrino is largely a marketing construct, not a technology, and the marketing group that pushed Centrino inside Intel apparently wants to make Microsoft happy and doesn't like Linux. I doubt this is going to last: Linux is too important for Intel to maintain this position.
    • That takes a while: getting the specs, implementing the drivers, testing them, etc. And it usually only happens after the hardware is starting to sell. So, it may well take a year or two for Linux drivers to appear for a piece of hardware. If you want it to happen faster, volunteer yourself.
      The problem with 802.11x support under Linux is that the specs are being kept under wraps. The card manufacturers say the reason is that their cards could be reprogrammed to transmit on reserved frequencies (military, air traffic control, etc.). Apparently, many of these manufacturers would like to make Linux drivers available, but they can't be free-as-in-speech without allowing any decent hacker to change the operating frequency and spy on or disrupt sensitive transmissions.

      As for Linux Centrino support, Linux is not particularly important in the mobile market (excepting Linux-based embedded systems). Servers remain the primary Linux market; Linux laptops are more the domain of hobbyists. While I have no doubt that Centrino drivers will be available for Linux, if what you said about the marketing team in charge of Centrino is true, they will probably come from the hacker community rather than from Intel.

      • The problem with 802.11x support under Linux is that the specs are being kept under wraps.

        That's true for a lot of hardware. Reverse engineering is part of writing a Linux driver. That's why it takes a while.

        The card manufacturers say the reason is that their cards could be reprogrammed to transmit on reserved frequencies (military, air traffic control, etc.).

        Yeah, that's just one of the many excuses and reasons.

        As for Linux Centrino support, Linux is not particularly important in the mobile marke

    • Re:drivers take a little while (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      RTFA. They can't get the specs. If I wanted to write a driver, I couldn't get the spces. They provide no binaries. Centrino has it's own undocumented chip. All these points are covered in the article.
    • I recently picked up a Sony Z1A with Centrino wireless built in. Its a great laptop though I'm still figuring out all the Linux stuff for it. I gave up on linux support for wireless after figuring out that the windows drivers don't even work well. They're great UNLESS you have other networks in the area.

      For example, I have my home wireless network and my neighbor also has one that my laptop picks up. Because Centrino is "smart" enough to be "seamless" across networks, 5 minutes after connecting to my o
      • Win XP does this with only one base station "visible"! The recommended fix from the vendor is to turn of the zero config stuff. Still get drop-outs every now and then. Same on, but to a lesser degree on a win2k laptop

        What is very funny is that the Linux drivers (atmel) have no problems at all...Ha!

  • FYI incaseof /. fx (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    2. Some WLAN Chip Specs Secret To Protect Military Communications
    28 Apr - 1 May (21 posts) Archive Link: "Broadcom BCM4306/BCM2050 support"
    Topics: Networking
    People: Martin List-Petersen, David S. Miller, Alan Cox, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger, Richard B. Johnson

    Bas Mevissen asked if Linux had any support for Broadcom's BCM4306 or BCM2050 WLAN chips. He saw that the BCM4401 ethernet chip had a Linux driver, and was hopeful that maybe the WLAN chips did as well. Martin List-Petersen replied, "It seems, that the

  • Why not simply make it illegal to operate? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fefe ( 6964 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @01:56PM (#6009496) Homepage
    I can buy a regular transmitter and modify it to transmit on a forbidden frequency. Does that mean we can't sell transmitters or books telling people how to build one? No!

    I think this is a straw man argument.

  • Things to do with software radio (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dark Coder ( 66759 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @01:57PM (#6009505)

    1. Listen to a baby cry over your neighbors' baby monitor.
    2. Neighbor humping a lover in front of their baby monitor
    3. Transmitting "Hey, that's my wife; I'm going to blow your balls off!"
    4. Watch them scatter

  • illegal Radio Operation (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yeah - that reminds me of the wifi combo card Im using - its a prototype card that I've had for about 3 months that does A, B, and G. The software limits radio strength normally based on the country that you're in due to FCC regulations. However, the developer software allows you to set the power transmit - something thats actually illegal according to the FCC (the consumer is not allowed to sett the power level of the card).

  • It revolves around the business model (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jj_johny ( 626460 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:00PM (#6009523)
    I was looking into doing some WLAN engineering but found that it was too difficult to do without getting hold of the documents. Since these chips are used primarily in high volume applications - i.e. OEMs using 10 of thousands at a time - the manufacturers don't give out the specs to the public. First, they don't want to deal with questions from someone who is not paying them for their engineering support services. And second, they don't want the competition getting hold of the future direction in the product that may be hinted at in their technical documentation. All the manufacturers that I know of require you to sign an NDA to get a copy.

    The only real leverage that anyone has is only buying products that have explicit Linux support from the OEM.

  • I own a 3com Airconnect PCMCIA wireless card and even though there are open source drivers made for it, I still have a helluva time ever getting that card to work.

    Why is it so hard to make a decent driver that works well and is easy to configure? Is there some sort of problem dealing with Linux as compared to Windows that makes it so tough? Or is it simply because of supply and demand?
    • Supply and demand, basically.

      Think about it. Most computers out there are running Windows, so what do the companies support? Of course, the majority of platforms. They figure, so what if the 'linux geeks' don't get what they want, they can just hack their own driver if they want to use this hardware.
      That is to say, if they even think about other operating systems at all...
      Since there is basically like no commercial support for this kind of hardware on linux, people like those that started the wlan-ng p
      • Would companies allow developers to sign an NDA so they could have access to most of the hardware's specification data to write a driver? In doing so, would a company force the driver to be closed source and maybe the company have exclusive rights to it? Or do companies just not allow people to do this cause of IP reasons?

    • it's not hard (Score:3, Informative)

      by g4dget ( 579145 )
      Get a supported card and the regular drivers (not wlan-ng), then type:
      iwconfig eth1 essid your-id
      iwconfig eth1 key s:your-password
      iwconfig eth1 mode Managed
      (Substitute your actual device for eth1.) That's all you need. Afterwards, use whatever you use to configure a wired Ethernet card (pump, dhclient, ifconfig).

      All the rest (configuration files, etc.) is just distribution-related fluff.
  • Will be allowed to use these.


    Any other use will be considered a federal crime. You are a terrorist. Those convicted will be required to purchase and install a copy of Microsoft's current OS for each CPU they own. Too bad if you have a SMP system.

  • Having worked in the field before... (Score:3, Informative)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:08PM (#6009596)
    with 2.4Ghz ISM wireless network stuff, anyway... on the manufacturing & design side...

    This is something I hadn't thought of in terms of software. I mean, if you make, say, a wireless router, there are various laws you have to follow to get approval in various places.. things like :

    The antenna connector has to be non-standard. This is why you'll see like, a TNC conenctor with the threads reversed, or the gender parts half swapped, etc. It's so consmers don't hook it up to amplifiers and things.. or rather, so they understand that they are not supposed to. The same goes for software functions.. there are many functions accessible in the software that would allowt eh device to operate outside of the allowabloe parameters, but we had to keep those hidden & inaccessible. If they were presented to the customer, the customer woudl be able to violate FCC just by using commands we supplied them.

    So.. I never considered that with regards to linux drivers.. but it is a good point.

  • Wires [belkin.com] are where it's at.

    No problem getting the specs. You want CAT5e? CAT6? RS-232? How about some coax?

    Be it twisted pair, fibre optic, stranded, or even tin cans on a string, wires are the future.

  • the _REAL_ reason for no drivers... (Score:5, Informative)

    by kwj8fty1 ( 225360 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:17PM (#6009689) Homepage
    Many of the chipset makers feel that their 'drivers' are also their IP. In the wireless space, the first to market folks get to make the rules. In the case of 802.11a, Atheros was the first to market. There existed a 'binary only' driver that was built on a mandrake linux box. The bad news is the way it was built made it completely useless. I've not heard of anyone having sucuess using it. Rumor has it that Atheros built this driver & they would release 'formal' drivers for their chipsets. This hasn't happened yet. I doubt it will until they have somebody else providing 802.11a chipsets. To them, it's about getting market share & protecting IP.

    Recent developments:

    Reyk Floeter [vantronix.net] has started building a GPL driver. It's amusing based on the context of this article, because all this driver can do is SNIFF. That's right, RX Only. Progress has been very slow, and there have been several questions to the list as to how this driver exists, and how it's being built. It would seem that Reyk doesn't have any of the specs & hasn't signed an NDA. I assume he's reverse engineering the windows drivers, but he hasn't stated as much. The development progress has been _VERY_ slow, and this project needs help from OSS devs. Anyone up for a challenge?

    Intellegraphics [intelligraphics.com] signed the NDA, and has a driver 'for sale'.

    While the government has it's paws in everything, I doubt this is the case at this point. This whole article is based on FUD.

    That's all. -Eric Johanson, SeattleWireless [seattlewireless.net]
    • Many of the chipset makers feel that their 'drivers' are also their IP


      I believe this is the main reason for the lack of driver support. I was at some trade show or the other, and I asked a wireless ethernet card vendor if they had Linux support. The reply was that the software driver was a significant part of the engineering effort, and they considered it a big part of their "value added".

  • What I don't understand is why this page [broadcom.com] on Broadcom's site specifies that there are available embedded Linux drivers, yet they are nowhere to be found.

  • Doesn't explain it all! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rMortyH ( 40227 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:27PM (#6009788)
    I have been buying 802.11 cards like crazy trying to find one that will work well with Linux for mobile self-propelled linux boxes.

    WHat I have found is that almost all the new cards out there, brand name, no name, etc, are based on the broadcom chip, for which there is no driver.

    Now it's true that there are wierd FCC rules, such as the one that the antenna connectors must be proprietary, as if that makes a difference, but that doesn't explain certain things.

    For instance, the SMC, Siemens, and Linksys cards all USED to work. The new cards from these vendors, such as the Linksys WPC11, don't work, but have the SAME MODEL NUMBER even though they are entirely different cards. They all give the same codes or similar when inserted, they all have similar antenna shapes, they all have two dimples in the bottom of the antenna where one dimple has a bump from the injection molder.

    Now, the only difference I can see on the BOX between the old and the new ones is that the new ones mention Windows XP. So, can it be that MS would only support chipsets with proprietary specs? It sure looks that way. I really can't understand why multiple vendors would completely change the card and keep the same model number. This makes no sense. I think it's as simple as not supporting linux compatible hardware in each release of windows. Not so far fetched, how many product boxes do you see that even MENTION linux? You're not gonna get that 'designed for windows XP' logo if you don't do as you're told.

    Now, the older cards work just fine, I have a prism card and it's great. Problem is I only have one, which serves no purpose at all. ALso, aparantly the Netgear card DOES work, but not well, under linux, and Cisco's Aironets are supposed to work fine, though they cost twice as much and I'll gladly pay, but I have yet to find a retail channel for these (help)

    So I've bought six different types of cards ranging in price from $49 to $79 and they are ALL broadcom products. You can see the similarities in the physical construction of the card as soon as you take it out of the box. Slight differences in antenna shape, but always with the broadcommy squareness.

    Also, you can order parts real cheap and configure them to put out a carrier on any frequency you want, so this really sounds like baloney. Not that it isn't the reason they're giving, but it isn't the reason. We're talking about less than 0.1 watt here. If the military doesn't like the signal they can just move to the livingroom. Seems to block it just fine from my experience.

    So I have an awesome little laptop robot and I can only control it from windows or mac and I have another one that I haven't even bothered with because I can't operate them at the same time.

    I don't feel very free to innovate.
    • I use a sitecom card (802.11b) with the atmel chipset. Drivers are available on sourcforge, and seem to work quite well. (Using SuSE 8.1). In fact, the drivers work better than the windows ones!

  • So very true... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GarfBond ( 565331 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:28PM (#6009793)
    I'm going to give up mod points here just to chime in, since this is an issue I care about.

    Anyone looking to get good wireless card support (802.11b) should buy one with a prism2 chip or an Orinoco. I know many that have had good luck with these cards, and I know for a fact that the Orinoco cards are essentially plug and play in linux. Do NOT buy the TI chipsets (sometimes marketed as 22mbps 802.11b+) or the Broadcom chipsets; word on the street (heh) is that these companies have been less than forthcoming with specs so people can write proper drivers for them.

    It's too bad that this is the sad state of wireless support in linux, that we must be at the manufacturer's mercy to get our hardware working properly. I've been waiting for 2 years now to get my USB wireless card (oh yeah, avoid those too if you can) working in linux, and it's all because the company doesn't care.
  • It seems a little suspicious that 802.11b chipsets had none of these problems, but suddenly with a and g every vendor has a programmable radio and thus open source drivers can never be released.

  • SDRs and frequencies (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7@@@cornell...edu> on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:36PM (#6009854) Homepage
    Most of these cards have internal restrictions (such as firmware) preventing out-of-band operation. At least Prisms do.

    Even with wide-open drivers, I don't think you can force most Prism cards out-of-band because the firmware restricts it. (Which sucks, because all it takes is a 55-question multiple choice test and you can legally run 802.11 cards out of the ISM band and at much higher powers - The 2.4 GHz amateur (ham) band is adjacent to the ISM band, and many cards can be reclassified under Part 97 rules.)

    What I would love to see is open specs for a cable modem chipset - it would make a perfect exciter for an amateur data network if combined with a transverter.

  • Read the linked article, please. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @02:37PM (#6009864)
    People, come on, RTFA, ok?

    This is not about 802.11b, it's about 802.11g, the newer standard. The one that can do 54 Mbps? Look arround for drivers for those chipsets (mostly Broadcom or Intel's). You'll find none. Why? Because these things can be programmed to receive *and* transmit on any frequency. Any. That inclues military frequencies. Building a receiver for any frequency is not rocket science. In fact it's boring since it's well known. The problem is that the FCC has to approve this things. The vendor builds it and they have to get approval from the FCC to market it. If the FCC catches word that the vendor is giving the specs to a bunch of hippies, the hardware might not get approved (nothing to do with the FCC per se, it's just politics). The problem is some people out there are _very_ willing to go on a disrupt police communications. And what could be easier that just taking a laptop on a car and just war drive. It gives a whole new meaning to the term, doesn't it?

    Some people (RTFA) have proposed solutions, basically signed frequency tables, but since the hardware is out, it's too fscking late. That's going to be in the next gen hardware, but not in the current round. By the look of it, 802.11g on Linux is screwed for the time being.

    • Re:Read the linked article, please. (Score:4, Informative)

      by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @04:52PM (#6011155) Homepage Journal
      The FCC doesn't care if you give out the specs; the FCC just cares that there not be any way to send on restricted frequencies (and they'd like it if you can't receive on other restricted frequencies, either, at least not without knowing you're on a restricted frequency, so you can obey the law on disclosure of what you get).

      Basically, the card makers may some stuff configurable which shouldn't be configurable, and they need to deal with getting it configured in the legal way by default. The tricky thing is that there isn't a universal legal default.

      The situation is that it's illegal to disrupt police communications, and it's pretty easy, but it's also pretty obvious. If you're doing it, they can trivially track you down and arrest you. The manufacturer gets in trouble if you're doing it with an unmodified transmitter, because you might not realize you're breaking the law. If anyone who uses the SuSE driver for a Broadcom card (configured, of course, for Germany) in the US is breaking the law and causing problems for the police, someone will get in trouble, and it's likely to be Broadcom.
    • I have to wonder, though, whether this is a sensible approach to take. People can still write drivers for stuff even if they don't have the specs, and this has been done often for linux drivers. It's just a lot more difficult. Making it difficult isn't going to stop people from being able to do it. IMHO, they would be much better off providing the information, and prosecuting anybody abuses it - that way they don't have to deal with well meaning hackers who are accidentally broadcasting illegally while
    • 802.11g is screwed anyway, considering in the latest IEEE revision of the draft it is no longer 54 MBps but more along the line of 10-24, depending on 802.11b interoperability or not. You want 54 MBps then you do 802.11a.
  • I needed a new router/firewall/AP, I bought the linksys g product, a couple of G cards, spent an afternoon looking for Broadcom support in linux and pitched Redhat for WXp as a result.

    That laptop is mostly used for surfing the web and rdesktopping into other computers, I'd most likely put RH8 (9) BACK on it if Broadcom's g set was supported.

    I can't be the only person that WANTS this. (and I DID lobby Broadcom and Linksys for driver support)

  • G band not finalized yet. (Score:2, Informative)

    by zin ( 7049 )
    Maybe they aren't limiting the broadcast characteristics in firmware on the broadcomm G cards because they don't have a final spec yet and they are trying to keep the device/chipset as open as posisble so they can adapt to new changes in the specs if need be. I just wish that I could get it to work on my damn linux box cause right now I am running in mixed mode on my home wireless network.

    ZiN
  • Proxim let a developer take a library written by them custom for him that allows him certain functions that he needs, it works with pcmcia, isa and pci cards. he just wrote a wrapper around this library and has no access to the internal workings of the actual chipset to protect their details for security I suppose. Maybe he can help someone find the way with these new chip makers since he worked out a deal with another company that was not going to release the internal details. From what I gathered from

  • Oooo (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cyno ( 85911 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @03:12PM (#6010219) Journal
    I like the thought of suing companies for trespassing on my private property with their private radio transmissions.

    I want to the FCC to made all radio signals private property so I can sue every radio station, police station, local TV, my neighbor and her noisy telephone, etc.

    Hey, maybe we can declare all audio and electromagnetic transmissions private property so if you say something that offends me I can sue you, if it trespasses into my ear.

    I think we should make a set of laws so everyone can sue everyone else. Then just sit back and watch the people line up outside the courthouse. Maybe we could make our legal system a profitable marketplace where you can purchase a new law to help you sue for more money, at a fair price, of course. :)
    • I like where you are going with that....first off, it seems like the TV/MPAA/RIAA alliance should be an ally in this fight.....

      Sucker them into having their paid whores in congress change the laws, then act with massive lawsuits against all transmitting equipment.....

      As mentioned in the article, you can't have it both ways, either it's public for everyone or it's private with the right for me to sue any transmitter for tresspass on my property.....

  • The issue may be military radar (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ajs75 ( 45831 ) on Wednesday May 21, 2003 @03:48PM (#6010549)
    There are potentially serious issues with 5 GHz. WLAN technologies and military radar avoidance. This is the case in both the U.S. and Europe. The IEEE is working on mechanisms to dynamically avoid these conflicts. I can understand why it could be bad to allow anybody out there with one of these devices to twiddle the knobs as they could cause serious problems. This doesn't, in my mind, rule out binary drivers.
  • I know when I proposed that my Marine unit use wireless instead of running Cat5 everywhere out in the open while on unit field ops, I got shot down quicker than hell because wireless isn't secure enough to meet our standards. Anyway, I know the Marine Corps won't be using wireless for a long while. Can't comment on other services.
  • These kernel hackers seem to think the radio is DC-to-light, and if they got a driver working they could transmit on any frequency. 802.11 is 2.401 GHz to 2.473 Ghz (US & Canada, at least.) Alan Cox says:

    I talked to one vendor about this stuff and fingers crossed we will see open drivers except for the radio module. In the longer term I suspect vendors will move to signed register sets, so you can load "US 802.11g" but you can't load "police frequency, full power"

    In the US, most police freq

  • The reason for the "protect military coms" is that years ago at teh end of WW2, NATO decided that the 800/900 Mhz should be split so that the military use one half and civilians get the other half. The US used and NATO used an opposite arrangement so that if US troops needed to go in to Europe, their military radios would not interfer with the local military radios.

    This happeden on other frequencies as well but most of the WAN frequences are out of the rubbish heap.

    2.4 is sort of no-mans land. Until rec
  • the Communications Act of 1934 did not do their homework. In 1986, a huge body of law was enacted in the US to "prevent" listening in on cell phone conversations and any other communication "not intended for your receipt". The text of the ECPA [cpsr.org] is not very useful in itself; you must read the redacted Title Title 18 USC, Sec. 2510 [gpo.gov].
  • the FCC does not regulate military frequencies. The military has it's own equivalent to the FCC. The two organizations do coordinate, however.

  • I suspect with articles like this, whether they are true or not, that anarchists will start sharing information over Freenet [sourceforge.net] about how to spew 5Ghz energy from any wall socket -- not even using parts from Radio Shack, which tracks your identity and parts you buy from them (or at least did for all the years I was growing up).

    Can't the guvvies figure out something to do that isn't so vulnerable to attack and that doesn't annoy the taxpayers so? Stupid as they are, it's hard to beleive they're _that_ stupid

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