Submitted by BSD and Linux programmers have had a lot of success in creating drivers for new computer hardware in a timely manner, but much of their effort has been without the support of major hardware manufacturers. Intel, Marvell, Texas Instruments and Broadcom, though separate and competing entities, seem by one consent to prevent non-Microsoft operating systems from working properly with some of their most widely-used network chips.
The Battle for Wireless Drivers in Linux and BSD
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve noticed that support for non-“Airport” wifi hardware is one of the big weak spots in OS X. I recently had a client with an older iBook that he wanted to get online wirelessly. My options were: pay $650 to the local Apple reseller for an internal airport card (I’m sure they sell *tons* of those), or pay $80 for a belkin USB wifi adapter shipped from Toronto. The latter is the option I eventually ended up going with, after trying and returning 5 other models of USB wifi adapters (none of which worked, despite a few hours futzing around with instructions that involved manually editing .plist files).
$650 for an airport card is a rip-off. You can get those cheaply for $50 on the internet. That’s what it cost me when I bought mine a year ago.
A quick google search reveals http://www.airportcardblast.com/original-apple-airport-card.html
The sale price is $79, and the normal price is $139. It’s a far cry from your $650.
(…) but much of their effort has been without the support of major hardware manufacturers
seem by one consent to prevent non-Microsoft operating systems from working properly with some of their most widely-used network chips
Nihil Novi
I still recall Realtek being the most responsive to alternative operating systems that I’ve seen. Years ago they provided a BeOS driver when BeOS was still relatively young.
IMO, they deserve their success.
It all comes down to doing research and voting with your wallet when you can.
Hell, I remember that on the floppy with the drivers for the rtl cards you could get a .c source file with the driver for linux!
(it was in the kernel anyway, but it was a nice touch)
“I still recall Realtek being the most responsive to alternative operating systems that I’ve seen.”
NICs produced by Realtek usually have high interrupt rates (“interrupt storm”), but they work good in almost every hardware configuration with almost every OS (as far as I’ve tested *BSD, Linux and BeOS and I think it was Solaris/x86). And they are cheap, so probably this is the reason why you find RTL chips for the built-in NICs on so many x86 mainboards. Of course, you cannot compare their performance to 3Com cards.
Okay, RTL8029 and RTL8139 are not wireless…
The “Battle for Wireless Drivers in Linux and BSD” is only made by OpenBSD. The others just wait they make the works for them.
So kudo to the OpenBSD project.
“is only made by OpenBSD.”
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
http://madwifi.org/
I guess your lying and wrong , but that’s just me and reality saying so.
Edit 1 :
“Theo de Raadt told me in an email, “Our efforts to do more wireless involves a few approaches. We reverse-engineer what we can. We borrow from other people’s reverse-engineering lessons where we can, for instance, prism54.org is a Linux team, but their reverse-engineer work has resulted in knowledge which we can obviously use to write a BSD driver. ”
Edited 2006-12-21 17:45
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/
http://madwifi.org/
I guess your lying and wrong , but that’s just me and reality saying so.
This article is about the absence of manufacturer support for *open source* drivers. OpenBSD has been fighting with some success at getting documentation for wireless chipsets, which has resulted in high quality drivers for *all* open source operating systems.
ndiswrapper wraps closed source windows drivers.
madwifi supports atheros cards (which OpenBSD has supported for some time now).
“This article is about the absence of manufacturer support for *open source* drivers.”
The Battle for Wireless Drivers in Linux and BSD … You are wrong , as usual and again …
its for ANY wireless drivers.
“OpenBSD has been fighting”
Yes and GNU/Linux as been paying and obtaining the driver documentation that BSD’s got to use.
Let me quote the article again :
“Theo de Raadt told me in an email, “Our efforts to do more wireless involves a few approaches. We reverse-engineer what we can. We borrow from other people’s reverse-engineering lessons where we can, for instance, prism54.org is a Linux team, but their reverse-engineer work has resulted in knowledge which we can obviously use to write a BSD driver. ”
“which has resulted in high quality drivers for *all* open source operating systems. ”
Off course , they are GNU/Linux driver that got ported to BSD , like everything else they got this days , when are you guys starting to pay and pull your weight ?
“ndiswrapper wraps closed source windows drivers.”
Yes , but they also document the integration and help working on the native solution from those observations.
“madwifi supports atheros cards”
http://madwifi.org/
http://madwifi.org/wiki/Compatibility
Wrong again … unless 3Com , AirLink , Belkin … BIG ETC, got bought in the last 5 seconds by Atheros …
“(which OpenBSD has supported for some time now).”
Yes , they ported the GNU/Linux driver and used the GNU/Linux documentation.
Discussion is over , its not **only** OpenBSD.
“madwifi supports atheros cards”
http://madwifi.org/
http://madwifi.org/wiki/Compatibility
Wrong again … unless 3Com , AirLink , Belkin … BIG ETC, got bought in the last 5 seconds by Atheros …
madwifi stands for Multi-band Atheros Driver for Wifi. It’s the driver for the Atheros chipsets. A lot of different companies use those chipsets in their wireless devices. madwifi *ONLY* supports Atheros chipsets.
If you’re going to correct someone, at least use correct information.
http://madwifi.org/wiki/MadWifi
“MadWifi is short for Multiband Atheros Driver for Wireless Fidelity (WiFi). ”
At least be precise yourself …
I was not discussing the name but the fact that they are a GNU/Linux project that they support more then just the Atheros cards , witch make me 100% correct on my point ( witch was not all OpenBSD ).
Unless , again , 3Com , AirLink , Belkinand all the other cards maker got bought by Atheros , they do a lot more then just support Atheros cards wich make me 100% correct.
Now your right those cards are all based on Atheros chipset , but thats a different point entirely that you just brought up , it as nothing to do with my point.
I was not correcting , I was saying this guy is lying for saying that OpenBSD does everything.
No, you are 100% incorrect.
The madwifi project only support Atheros chipsets. Period. They don’t support specific cards. They support specific chipsets.
Those chipsets are used by many different card manufacturers, yes. But it’s the chipsets on those cards that madwifi supports. And it’s only the Atheros chipsets.
3Com, D-Link, NetGEAR, etc all make a lot of different cards with different chipsets. You can’t say “madwifi supports 3Com” becuase they don’t. madwifi supports cards that use the Atheros chipset. Period. Not all 3Com cards use the Atheros chipsets. Hence, madwifi does not support 3Com.
Yes and GNU/Linux as been paying and obtaining the driver documentation that BSD’s got to use. (snipped Theo quote)
As usual, you are stretching the truth. Nothing in that quote says anything about “GNU/Linux” paying for driver docs. What it did say is that sometimes OpenBSD uses Linux drivers (that were reverse engineered on Linux first) as documentation for their own drivers.
Wrong again … unless 3Com , AirLink , Belkin … BIG ETC, got bought in the last 5 seconds by Atheros
Madwifi only supports Atheros chipsets (which is what I meant to say). All of the cards listed on the madwifi website are based on the Atheros chipset.
Yes , they ported the GNU/Linux (Atheros) driver and used the GNU/Linux documentation
Wrong again.
“Also new in OpenBSD 3.7 is the ath driver for the Atheros chipsets, an effort led by Reyk Floeter … Sam Leffler, an Atheros Communications employee at the time, developed a FreeBSD ath driver that links to a binary-only HAL object. Atheros refused to open the binary file, so through much dedicated effort Reyk reversed engineered it”
(http://kerneltrap.org/node/4818)
Also, the madwifi drivers use a binary HAL, so it cannot be included with Linux by default, due to licencing issues
they are GNU/Linux driver that got ported to BSD , like everything else they got this days , when are you guys starting to pay and pull your weight ?
Again, you don’t know what you are talking about. Many of the OpenBSD drivers (atw,ral,rtw,rum,wi,zyd) were based on documentation, not reverse engineering.
Read the link below and educate yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Open_Source_Wireless_Dri….
No , I told the truth : everything is paid and made by GNU/Linux first ( docs , drivers , developers (yours too ) , you take it and work your software and driver from there. We even fund BSD’s and pay for the BSD’s developer …
So , thanks GNU/Linux.
No , I told the truth : everything is paid and made by GNU/Linux first ( docs , drivers , developers (yours too ) , you take it and work your software and driver from there. We even fund BSD’s and pay for the BSD’s developer …
So , thanks GNU/Linux
Well, since you are telling the truth, I guess that I just have to believe you and your 0.21 average comment rating.
Good one Moulinneuf.
What can I say ? Oh yes :
http://www.osnews.com/user.php?uid=2468
Fix that one system abuse and then we will start talking about scoring average …
What can I say ? Oh yes :
Save you mod points to proactively mod Moulinneuf’s posts into oblivion. He poisons every discussion he enters, on every forum unfortunate enough to have been discovered by him.
By doing so, we will all be rewarded with a better OSAlert.
Fix that one system abuse and then we will start talking about scoring average …
That’s one user’s written opinion. It just so happens that many others agree with him. You deserve it Moulinneuf. I don’t need to cite any examples as to why you deserve it, your comment history speaks for itself.
No , its one coward who use multiple accounts to attack my scoring rating , opinion actually say something valid and of value , and are done with words. Something you know nothing about as shown by your above previous lies.
My comment history show that I was right and that abusers don’t deserve voting right , I don’t expect someone who is ashame of who he is and is actually abusing the voting system , right now , to have something valid to say about the subject.
BSD offers flexibility but not popularity. So while it has no problem with closed source drivers, there’s not enough marketshare for companies to consider making them
linux offers popularity but not flexibility. Companies are scared of the possibility they may have to open their drivers so they don’t bother making them at all
BSD offers flexibility but not popularity
wtf?
NetBSD runs on 50+ hardware platforms using only one source tree.
Yeah, but it is a *very* obscure OS nonetheless.
Nowadays most people (hey, most *managers*) have heard of linux. Ask them about BSD: blank stare.
And that’s despite probably their home AND work router use it, plus the firewall appliance and the wifi access point.
Portable does not equate to popular.
Nowadays most people (hey, most *managers*) have heard of linux. Ask them about BSD: blank stare.
That just shows their incompetence and lack of knowledge.
They can be even classified (generally):
People who use Windows, know only Windows and does not know that this is operating system at the same time.
People who use Linux thinks that it is the best operating system on the earth and does not know other operating system then … Linux [they whink that Windows is not operating system because of its instability]
People who use UNIX [*BSD/Solaris/IRIX/HP-UX/AIX] know their os very good and also know other operating systems, and also know which operating system is good for specific task.
At the closing session of EuroBSDCon 2005, Poul-Henning Kamp made a statement along the following lines: “I don’t care that Linux has 99% of the users, as long we have the best 1%”
got the dot?
Edited 2006-12-21 13:04
“””
They can be even classified (generally):
People who use Windows, know only Windows and does not know that this is operating system at the same time.
People who use Linux thinks that it is the best operating system on the earth and does not know other operating system then … Linux [they whink that Windows is not operating system because of its instability]
People who use UNIX [*BSD/Solaris/IRIX/HP-UX/AIX] know their os very good and also know other operating systems, and also know which operating system is good for specific task.
“””
You are hardly doing the BSDs a service by insulting the users of other OSes.
Fortunately, many of us recognize that one *BSD fanboy does not a bad OS make, so the damage is mitigated, and you only made a fool of yourself.
Go forth and sin no more.
Edited 2006-12-21 13:59
Would you like fries with that elitism?
People who use Linux thinks that it is the best operating system on the earth and does not know other operating system then … Linux [they whink that Windows is not operating system because of its instability]
Well, excuse me for being a Linux user who uses it by choice despite knowing how to configure a BSD system. The last time I tried to install a BSD on a laptop, it didn’t recognise the PCcard slot, kept giving me ACPI errors, and wouldn’t shut the screen off when I put down the lid.
Sorry, but there are linux distros out there with much better hardware support than Linux – hardware support that some people need.
Linux-chauvinism can be avoided by talking to the right people – and even then, the chauvinism is against Windows OSes, but NOT often the users.
BSD chauvinism is often the first and only thing one comes up against.
Hmm… I have Debian Linux installed on my main system. (The system I’m using at the moment.) I have FreeBSD 6.1 installed on my Sony Vaio laptop.
I have Mac OSX and Ubuntu 6.10 installed on my G4 iBook. I have Windows 2000 installed on a spare AMD Athlon 1.33GHz computer which I use to play StarCraft from time to time.
I have OpenBSD 3.9 installed on a Soekris net4801 embedded system. I bought the OpenBSD 4.0 CD set from openbsd.org, but I haven’t taken the time to upgrade my net4801 yet. (edit: Great little box. It runs Postfix for my e-mail server as well as an IMAP daemon and SpamAssassin. It has PostgreSQL/PHP/Apache on it for a web server that I use internally. I have a PvPGN game server running on it for my StarCraft needs. I have OpenLDAP running on it so I can store my contacts in a central location. It has openntpd running on it which all my local computers use to sync their time.)
I have Zeta 1.2 and BeOS 5.0.3 installed on yet another spare computer. Granted, the Zeta/BeOS machine is just kind of a toy. There are quite a few things I like about BeOS, but I just don’t find it that useful unfortunately.
I have FreeDOS 1.0 installed on an old 333MHz eMachine that I got for free from someone who had no use for it.
I have installed Solaris x86 on one of my spare systems on a variety of occasions. I still have my OS/2 Warp 3 retail box sitting on the shelf. Oh, I almost forgot, my wife has Ubuntu 6.10 installed on her Dell laptop which she uses several hours every day.
I’ve used HP/UX on an HP9000, AIX on an RS6000, and have spent time with Solaris on all kinds of Sparc/UltraSparc/etc.. Sun hardware.
DOS 5.0 is about as “old school” as it gets with me. I was too young for anything prior to that. Well, I did have a C64 when I was a kid. And an Atari 130XE. But I remember DOS 5 and 6, Windows 2.x/3.x, Windows NT 3.x, Windows 95/98, etc… Heck, a place I worked at back in the late 90’s even payed for me to get an MCSE. (What a joke that was. But it wasn’t my money.) I’ve played with ReactOS, QNX, MenuetOS, SkyOS… and other operating systems I can’t even remember.
So … anyway, I’m not sure which of your little categories I fall into? Am I the know-nothing Windows user? The stupid Linux guy?
Please enlighten me.
Edited 2006-12-21 21:37
Sure, you know a little about many operating systems but not a lot about any of them.
Just kidding, man. My basement used to be full of the same hodge podge of computers running a variety of operating systems. I had to ditch the old systems when we moved. Ironically now I have a friend sending me his old PII so I can run BeOS again.
you know a little about many operating systems but not a lot about any of them.
Well… I feel like I know a lot about *some* of them.
I know Debian really well. And in general, I find Linux distributions similar enough that I don’t have any trouble finding my way around. Slackware was my first distro back in 1995. Then I spent a couple of years mostly with RedHat. Then it was back to Slackware for a short time. Then I moved on to Debian. Eventually I moved to Gentoo for just under 2 years but I got really tired of it and went back to Debian. And all the while, I was experimenting with Fedora, Mandrake/Mandriva, Lycoris, SuSE/Suse/suse/whatever, Corel Linux, Xandros, Lindows/Linspire, Arch Linux, and many others.
I understand the X Window System quite well. A few months back, I made a few videos about the X Window System. http://youtube.com/my_playlists?p=A8E036608C60B7E5
OSAlert (this website) accepted my pseudo-review about Zeta 1.1 and posted it. http://www.osnews.com/story.php/13612/My-Personal-Experiences-with-…
But I don’t claim to be a BeOS/Zeta expert by any stretch. I’m just intrigued by the OS and enjoy experimenting with it. I wish I could do more with it. Maybe when Haiku gets further along I will be able to.
I’m very comfortable with OpenBSD and FreeBSD. I’ve written extensive documentation about working with FreeBSD with embedded systems. http://www.ultradesic.com/guides.php
And Windows … well … despite the fact that I rarely use it any more, I’m afraid the years I spent supporting that OS are still firmly embedded in my mind.
You’re a damn newbie. You haven’t even run Irix yet.
> > Nowadays most people (hey, most *managers*) have heard of linux.
> > Ask them about BSD: blank stare.
>
> That just shows their incompetence and lack of knowledge.
You claimed the BSDs to be popular, and when confronted with contradicting arguments, the first (and in fact only) thing you do is to choose a scapegoat. By doing so, you actually agree that the BSDs are in fact unpopular but show that you did not want a discussion in the first place, because you do not consider “losing” a discussion to be an acceptable outcome. You also show very well why you will never contribute to raising BSD’s popularity.
> got the dot?
Yes: You like trolling.
Yes: You like trolling.
What makes me troll and You not?
under “popularity” he probably meant “every kid on the block uses it just because other kids heard that too”.
quality of code and real engineering efforts are not considered there.
linux offers popularity but not flexibility. Companies are scared of the possibility they may have to open their drivers so they don’t bother making them at all
Not really, although that’s an excuse they may give because they can’t think of anything else to say.
If opening their drivers and working inside the Linux kernel is what they have to do to make money then they’ll do it, but they will be dragged kicking and screaming there. It’s much the same as when network standards were being worked out, and hardware manufacturers steadfastly refused to go with ethernet (something open that would work with any manufacturer’s devices and that would take away their lock-in) in the vain hope that their own proprietary network technologies would gain critical mass. However, the whole dynamics of networks and what people wanted to do forced it.
Mind you, just with that one article I know who to buy from now ;-).
Edited 2006-12-21 11:08
BSD offers flexibility but not popularity. So while it has no problem with closed source drivers, there’s not enough marketshare for companies to consider making them
That is incorrect. None of the (major) BSDs will ever accept a binary driver. Hell, they don’t even want an open source driver provided by the manufacturer. They want specs so that they can implement their own driver.
It’s true that someone could make a binary BSD ‘distro’ and then ask HW manufactures to write drivers for it. That is what Apple did.
Edited 2006-12-21 17:12
None of the (major) BSDs will ever accept a binary driver. Hell, they don’t even want an open source driver provided by the manufacturer. They want specs so that they can implement their own driver.
That’s odd. I’m sure I heard the OBSD folks crowing/complaining about how they were the only BSD which forbade binary blobs.
Yes there is a blob called Nvidia, but you will find this too in Debian Linux.
>I’m sure I heard the OBSD folks crowing/complaining about how they were the only BSD which forbade binary blobs.
At all in the system, that’s true.
Yes there is a blob called Nvidia, but you will find this too in Debian Linux.
Your original comment said nothign about whether those blobs would exist in Linux.
Indeed, FreeBSD and NetBSD both actively seek binary solutions the same way most Linux distributions do, DragonFly BSD just uses whatever is there, if there is an open alternative they will switch, but will otherwise use a binary.
*BSD has a problem with binary drivers, but it doesn’t need a GPL, common sense is enough. And if you have a look at OpenBSD, it’s really open, it’s fighting agains Blobs, every time, every hour, more than some GPL’ed Linux distro. That’s not the beginning of flamewar-nonsense, but for the records according common sense!
I’m impressed by the author’s patience in trying to establish a connection with the mentioned firms. Well researched, well argued, I wish more articles on OS News were like this one.
rehdon
Edited 2006-12-21 09:35
The apple site has the Airport Extreme cards for $49, which is hugely far off $650, really have no idea where you get $650 from.
That said, it is a huge shame to see them only supporting Windows more than Linux and BSD.
Part of the problem is BSD and Linux we love to see things OpenSource, including all the drivers, which these companies do not like, why I’m not sure, they probably have their reasons. So when they release a proprietary driver, no one likes it or uses it.
I’m not sure why people do not like these drivers, your average joe blog isn’t concerned whether the driver is opensource or proprietary, he wants a driver that works with his hardware.
Airport Extreme != Airport. Airport Extreme is the 802.11g wireless cards that are used by the later Macs, while the original Airport supports only the older 802.11b standard. These Airport cards are no longer manufactured by Apple and hence they are rarer and now cost more than Airport Extreme cards
I just picked the atheros chipset and went to the manufacturers website and got a list of products that use a atheros chipset.Piece a cake,i bought a D-link DWL-G520 wireless PCI card.Works out of the box so to speak with most distros,otherwise a little extra configuration is needed.
To be honest, that article just sums up the God-awful state of hardware and driver development we’ve had for years now – with any OS. The situation and quality of the drivers that we have has only improved since open source operating systems and kernels, and Linux in particular, have gradually gained traction.
The situation with wireless is still the same. Across the board, the devices are still very immature on every OS. Yes on Windows you’re likely to get something that sort-of works, but woe betide you if you don’t pick your device carefully. The road to getting good wireless access is paved with terrible driver releases, drivers and firmware with bugs and endless updates – if your vendor doesn’t decide to cut its losses and discontinue it.
Worse, vendors are on a continual crusade to support draft versions of the next wireless standards, badly and with their own bugs included, and to try and get ahead of the competition(!) with their own proprietary turbo turbo standard, all with badly implemented drivers with their own bugs included.
It reminds me of the early days of ethernet, when everyone wanted to create their own lock-in and proprietary stuff, and vendors over the years were dragged kicking and screaming to actually use ethernet and for people to be able to get cards to actually talk to each other. This situation is no under threat again, as the article mentions, with Broadcom producing cards with MIPS and their own firmware, and the whole ridiculous issue of TOE and off-loading to the hardware and firmware in cards raising its ugly head again. The Linux kernel developers rejected TOE out of hand, quite rightly. I don’t look forward to getting one of those abominations running on Windows with all the driver, firmware and vendor specific bugs they will entail (we have them now anyway).
Look, we’ve spent between ten and fifteen years getting to somewhere where people can sort-of buy two cards and get them to talk to each other. Just leave the bloody things alone, OK?
I’m not sure that there is a conspiracy to keep hardware designed specifically for Windows, although I do think there is a certain amount of pressure at times from Microsoft. It’s just that hardware companies have always been like this, and if more people are to trust computers and use them more then the situation must improve as a whole.
Role on the day that the way to develop drivers is to get them open sourced and into the Linux kernel, they are tried, trusted and distributed with the OS and people have to do virtually nothing, that’s what I say.
When that day comes hardware manufacturers will sit up and take notice of free operating systems. As it is, the hardware situation is still bad enough on Windows.
Love the Intel vPro Ad on this page – how fitting.
All should take note and as someone else here said – vote with your wallet. Try not to buy anything that comes from manufacturers that don’t co-operate. Don’t feel sorry for them and their IP NDA excuses as they are there to make money. In most cases more money than they need. If the smaller manufacturers are making an effort reward them by purchasing thier hardware – they need the money more than Marvel and Intel. Thumbs up to Realtek as always.
In most cases more money than they need.
Who are we to decide how much money a company “needs” to make? Does anyone really have this right?
Statements like this are one of the reasons that these companies do not want to release their code. They see the F/OSS movement as being the same as communism – a threat to their livelyhoods and way of life. A business must have the right to charge whatever their customers will pay for their product, or no one has incentive to work. If they are overcharging, then people will not buy. The markets of the world might be made of relatively dumb people, individually, but together it seems they are pretty smart.
Now I know that F/OSS != communism, but if we allow overzealous statements such as the one I’ve quoted above to come into our arguements for the release of specs or code for *nix users, then we are using the same ideas and arguements that have failed the world over, and these arguements will be the death of our cause. Instead, try arguing that these companies will make even MORE money through the release of their code or specs, because people who run non-Microsoft OSes, and there are a LOT of us, will be more apt to buy their products.
You have to get into the mindset and worldview of your opponent. Note I did not say “enemy”. These people are NOT our enemies. We want to buy their products, and they want us to buy them, too. We both have the same goal of us giving them money, we just need them to give use a few bytes of code so we can use the product, tell our friends and colleagues how well they work, thus making the companies even more money.
If you were a business owner, wouldn’t that arguement sound a LOT better than “You make too much money from this code. Give it to us.”?
Edited 2006-12-21 19:14
How are they to know you care? Few, if any, manufacturers give you the chip[set]. So, you go to Google it, and find it, and get that one. How is, say, Linksys to know that you bought it because it had a Ralink chipset, and not because of some other feature of the part?
Now, if you know a company that has parts listed at Newegg, ZipZoomFly, etc., that actively lists the chips used for network devices, I’ll go for them in the future when possible.
Open source drivers are the way forward. Hardware is no longer ditched when it won’t run (say) Vista or OSX …. its second lease of life comes from open source.
Hardware components with exclusively closed source drivers become landfill sludge in about three years.
We need a central database to do a number of things:
Firstly: advise people with redeployable machine what their operating system choices are on the basis of driver support.
Secondly: the system could score component makers on the basis of the level of obstruction they exhibit with respect to open source drivers.
Thirdly: dereference the branded boxes to correctly identify the key chips and hence the level of driver support.
This should span open and closed source operating systems.
As a final comment: I believe drivers should be open source however the vast majority of firmware doesn’t need to be though freely redistributeable firmware is essential.
I think the wireless issue/problem also has to do with the FCC. Maybe they should also be contacted to get a idea of what is or is not required by the FCC regulations?
Sadly, these companies DO have wifi drivers for all three platforms. I helped with a Linux driver for one of the Big Three chip manufacturers. Unfortunately, I’m under NDA.
I have to agree with this article, the state of wireless support for Linux is terrible and I can say that just from my experience of using an old Linksys WUSB11 v 2.6.. there were only a few distros.. Ubuntu, Xandros, and Kanotix (RIP Kanotix) that were actually compatitble with it. The frustrating thing is you cant do a quick search and find just 1 wireless device that is compatible with every distro of Linux, believe me, I tried for at least 2 hours to find one that would be compatible with most Linux distros out of the box and it was maddening. I hope this situation will get corrected in a few years, but I dont see it happening sadly. Most manufacturers only seem to want to make drivers for Windows.