thejemreport.com— Why is it so difficult to get good drivers for wireless network cards? This article offers some explanations, including comments from wireless driver developers and wireless chip manufacturers.
Dec 21, 2006View in Crawl 4
@Spengy, that won't work if you have an HP or Compaq, as the laptop won't boot with a non-HP branded wireless card. You can do some EEPROM hacking (I did) to make it appear HP-branded and it'll work perfectly. I'll get around to writing a guide for it at some point.
@krazykit - What the hell are you talking about? I have an HP laptop and I just bought a Dlink WNA2330 for just this purpose, wireless on Linux. I installed the MadWifi drivers in OpenSuse 10.2 and it works flawlessly. It also works great in XP too, obviously.
Ralink is definately my chipset manufacturer of choice for LInux.The sucky part is that their drivers are not realy SMP or Endian safe right now. (ie, not to usefull for dual core or powerpc computers) But still the rt2x00 project is finally starting to produce drivers that work across all Linux supported platforms (support powerpc and multiple cpus for instance) and I hope they get official inclusion into the kernel soon. Also in addition to being good drivers the rt2x00 should be able to do things like WPA2 and such.I have 2 of their cards, one a PCI and another USB. Both work pretty well, quite happy with them.If your using Debian or Ubuntu you can install the program called 'module-assistant'. Then run something like:sudo m-a updatesudo m-a preparethen just run it with no agruements and you will be able to find the ralink drivers and download, compile and install them. Easy as pie, my mom can do it.If you want advanced features you'll have to compile the rt2x00 drivers from cvs, which obviously is going to require quite a bit more Linux geekery.Also a nice thing about the ralink is that they are typically in the cheapest devices. Also they are in many different formfactors, so if you need a cardbus/pcmcia-style, mini-pci, usb, or just plain old PCI cards you can find them. Keeping in mind the limitations I stated above they can be successfully used without much heartache.Here is a partial list of devices you can find the chipsets in. <a class="user" href="http://ralink.rapla.net/">http://ralink.rapla.net/</a>It's not exauhstive, and especially you have to watch out for revisions. Most popular cards have 3 or 4 revisions.. There is even a Belkin that has seven revisions to it. Each revision will use a different chipset. <a class="user" href="http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page">http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page</a>is the homepage for driver development. You can get help there if you run into problems.
Intel Pentium M works out-of-the-box in nearly any Linux distro. That's alot of laptops.It's Broadcom you have to worry about. Pick your hardware carefully, with knowledge, or just do what people normally do when buying a new computer, buy it with the operating system preinstalled: <a class="user" href="http://system76.com">http://system76.com</a>... is a good bet.
I'm running Ubuntu Edgy Eft on a Dell Latitude D620 with that integrated intel wireless chipset. The wireless works fine out of the box, and great once network-manager-gnome is installed.
jimxugleDec 21, 2006
@MarlesBarkleyHave you tried turning it off and on again?*grin*
oobuntuDec 21, 2006
@marlesbyou may need to blacklist the bad driver. check ubuntuforums for more details
krazykitDec 21, 2006
@Spengy, that won't work if you have an HP or Compaq, as the laptop won't boot with a non-HP branded wireless card. You can do some EEPROM hacking (I did) to make it appear HP-branded and it'll work perfectly. I'll get around to writing a guide for it at some point.
cawpinDec 21, 2006
@krazykit - What the hell are you talking about? I have an HP laptop and I just bought a Dlink WNA2330 for just this purpose, wireless on Linux. I installed the MadWifi drivers in OpenSuse 10.2 and it works flawlessly. It also works great in XP too, obviously.
taintpartyDec 21, 2006
Above your pay grade? That's the American way! Why learn it when I can just say it's not my job to know it at all?Lazy ass.
dragDec 21, 2006
Ralink is definately my chipset manufacturer of choice for LInux.The sucky part is that their drivers are not realy SMP or Endian safe right now. (ie, not to usefull for dual core or powerpc computers) But still the rt2x00 project is finally starting to produce drivers that work across all Linux supported platforms (support powerpc and multiple cpus for instance) and I hope they get official inclusion into the kernel soon. Also in addition to being good drivers the rt2x00 should be able to do things like WPA2 and such.I have 2 of their cards, one a PCI and another USB. Both work pretty well, quite happy with them.If your using Debian or Ubuntu you can install the program called 'module-assistant'. Then run something like:sudo m-a updatesudo m-a preparethen just run it with no agruements and you will be able to find the ralink drivers and download, compile and install them. Easy as pie, my mom can do it.If you want advanced features you'll have to compile the rt2x00 drivers from cvs, which obviously is going to require quite a bit more Linux geekery.Also a nice thing about the ralink is that they are typically in the cheapest devices. Also they are in many different formfactors, so if you need a cardbus/pcmcia-style, mini-pci, usb, or just plain old PCI cards you can find them. Keeping in mind the limitations I stated above they can be successfully used without much heartache.Here is a partial list of devices you can find the chipsets in. <a class="user" href="http://ralink.rapla.net/">http://ralink.rapla.net/</a>It's not exauhstive, and especially you have to watch out for revisions. Most popular cards have 3 or 4 revisions.. There is even a Belkin that has seven revisions to it. Each revision will use a different chipset. <a class="user" href="http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page">http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page</a>is the homepage for driver development. You can get help there if you run into problems.
ordminuteDec 21, 2006
Intel Pentium M works out-of-the-box in nearly any Linux distro. That's alot of laptops.It's Broadcom you have to worry about. Pick your hardware carefully, with knowledge, or just do what people normally do when buying a new computer, buy it with the operating system preinstalled: <a class="user" href="http://system76.com">http://system76.com</a>... is a good bet.
simonbpDec 22, 2006
I'm running Ubuntu Edgy Eft on a Dell Latitude D620 with that integrated intel wireless chipset. The wireless works fine out of the box, and great once network-manager-gnome is installed.