Clan x86
Technical (Development, Security, etc.) => Unix / Linux Discussion => Topic started by: nslay on September 06, 2006, 12:57:02 am
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I might be moving my laptop to NetBSD for wireless driver stability. NetBSD 4.0 is nearing its release, adding WPA and various other features that I would like.
The iwi driver, and well, any driver written by Damien (who is no longer working on the drivers) hold non-sleep locks in sleeping threads. The code is massive, I printed out some 60 or 70 pages so it looks like finding a needle in a hay stack. I might give patching it a crack, but it doesn't look promising. I advise anyone with Intel Pro Wireless cards and Ralink Wireless cards to avoid FreeBSD until these issues are settled.
I recently setup a NetBSD test machine (one among many P2P VLAN test machines) and was quite impressed with it ... it has pretty extensive hardware support too ... its even got a driver for an Electronic Oboe. How bizarre?
See:
http://damien.bergamini.free.fr/ipw/
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=kern/89926
http://www.netbsd.org/Changes/changes-4.0.html
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Say, I bought a Dell Inspiron notebook, standard machine. What would be the steps needed to get Wifi up and going with say, Gaim and Firefox? I really don't want to run Windows on a limited-power machine, and the only reason I use it on the beastly desktop is for gaming.
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Say, I bought a Dell Inspiron notebook, standard machine. What would be the steps needed to get Wifi up and going with say, Gaim and Firefox? I really don't want to run Windows on a limited-power machine, and the only reason I use it on the beastly desktop is for gaming.
On FreeBSD or ... ?
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Joe would be lost on a BSD machine.
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Say, I bought a Dell Inspiron notebook, standard machine. What would be the steps needed to get Wifi up and going with say, Gaim and Firefox? I really don't want to run Windows on a limited-power machine, and the only reason I use it on the beastly desktop is for gaming.
Assuming they use a normal card, you:
- Install Linux/BSD
- Install or load drivers
- Have fun
If I was to buy a laptop, I'd make sure to get Intel Centrino. Centrino comes with a standard wireless card (ipw2200), which has opensource drivers (http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net). I've gotten my Centrino laptop's wireless going without a whole lot of trouble on both Linux and FreeBSD.
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Joe would be lost on a BSD machine.
I don't know, Joe seems able enough. I think *BSD or Gentoo are great systems to start with because they force you to read the handbook and gain a real understanding for the system.
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- Install or load drivers
That's where I got stuck.
Linux (of course) with a 2.6.8+ kernel [link]. See README.ipw2200 for information on specific options required to be enabled in the kernel.
:(
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- Install or load drivers
That's where I got stuck.
Linux (of course) with a 2.6.8+ kernel [link]. See README.ipw2200 for information on specific options required to be enabled in the kernel.
:(
I'm not impressed with Linux's driver infrastructure ... and I'm especially disgusted by hotplugging and ALSA (having written a MIDI ALSA driver).
I can't believe driver and application authors can put up with Linux.