Might move to NetBSD

[nslay]

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

[Joe]

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.

[nslay]

x86] link=topic=7279.msg90519#msg90519 date=1157523853]
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 ... ?

[Newby]

Joe would be lost on a BSD machine.

[iago]

x86] link=topic=7279.msg90519#msg90519 date=1157523853]
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.

[nslay]

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.

[Sidoh]

- 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.

:(

[nslay]

- 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.