Sam Leffler has added 802.11a and 802.11g support in FreeBSD-Current. Sam says that the ‘ath’ drivers support all Atheros devices, making FreeBSD the first open source OS to support both standards.
FreeBSD First Open Source OS to Support 802.11a and 802.11g
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Eugenia Loli
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http://team.vantronix.net/ar5k/
they try to be competitive: but why? FreeBSD is great, but looks like they try to make something … blah blah… you know what I mean
Are you speaking of that driver which is neither finished nor fully functional?
Yes! Just as the BSD driver…we are talking about support
and i am using 802.11a for some time now on Linux and it works great. Linux is open-source and so is the driver so..
I just want fully functioning 802.11g.
I take this as FUD. It’s just obnoixious to say “first open source OS with foobar support.” I would say the same if a GNU/Linux user said this. Besides Linux isn’t opensource, its freesoftware, at least that is the sensible terminology which I would like to see applied.
“they try to be competitive: but why? FreeBSD is great, but looks like they try to make something … blah blah… you know what I mean”
No, actually, I don’t. Could you please explain. Your comment seems to lack any kind of coherency.
Congratulations to all OS that have this. Well done. A little sportsmanship is a good thing.
So what makes you think this ‘mistake’ is FUD? I can’t see how Linux users would Fear, be Uncertain or Doubt their use of Linux because of it…
“Besides Linux isn’t opensource, its freesoftware, at least that is the sensible terminology which I would like to see applied.”
GNU software would be more accurate. Trying to redefine the word free to represent a political viewpoint is tasteless…
On Topic:
Yet another reason to install FreeBSD on my next serverbox
are you sure about that? cause I’m inclined not to believe you’re using the ar5k driver. according to the changelogs and the mailing list, tx is not implemented in the latest release of the drive. you can hardly claim 802.11a/g support if the driver can’t transmit.
besides, these new drivers were finished a while back, but were delayed by FCC regulations. dunno if I’d classify these drivers as totally open source, since it requires a proprietary hal.
could be obnoxious, if you get your feelings hurt over an OS, so maybe it would have been better to say “yay, we have 802.11a/g support on FreeBSD and it’s being ported to Linux”.
Linux isn’t opensource, its freesoftware
I’m new at this, so cut me some slack if I’m wrong, because my fragile geek ego bruises easily:
It’s source code is freely distributed over the net. Unless made by a specific company, the source code is all readily available for everyone to see. Even with the aforementioned companies, they are forced to give you the source code to their OS once you purchase their software, which you are free to distribute any way you want. You may make the argument that they have closed source additions to their distributions, but none of them are part of the main code and thus not part of Linux, just something that runs off it. Thus the OS itself has all of its source code…open…for everyone to see. You know, like, Open-Source. But why get bogged in semantics.
Or maybe I just don’t know the specific differences between open-source and free software.
“Thus the OS itself has all of its source code…open…for everyone to see. You know, like, Open-Source.”
it’s the rules behind the license that makes the difference. how the software may be used, how or if it can be redistributed, how or if changes can be made(seeing the code is useless if you can’t modify it). RMS and the FSF support freedom, so they restrict software with the GPL(derived works remain free, etc). other licenses place other restrictions.
OSS works for me. to get too picky when speaking about “Linux”(when used as a whole, instead of directly pertaining to the kernel) or even “GNU/Linux” licensing is kind of minimizing the importance of the non-GNU software.
“Besides Linux isn’t opensource, its freesoftware, at least that is the sensible terminology which I would like to see applied.”
And what’s your point? BSD is more l33t? Anyway, it would be the opposite: BSD would be the free software ’cause you have more freedom with it. Both are definitely OSS even if you have more restrictions with the GPL.
And what’s your point? BSD is more l33t?
yer damn right it is.
The best post I’ve seen about Linx vs. FreeBSD yet:
http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=43719&cid=0&pid=0&startat=&…
Re:Don’t Forget (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on 10-30-02 1:55 (#4562664)
You “love” OpenBSD? whats the matter with you. its inanimate. i like FreeBSD, but dont love it. Thats a sign of zealotry right off.
the OS should be a coherent system, integrating “world” and ports is a bad idea. I have yet to see Gnetoo productionable. And I want it to do well. Why? RedHat sucks compared to FreeBSD and Linux needs a real attempt at system, badly. Gentoo isnt it. Everything builds, but nothing is tested.
FreeBSD is subtle, the marketing idiots at stupid .com companies and never understood it. Its quietly sitting in the corner, kicking ass. Linux is embarassingly floudering around with a kernel whose boss things its cute to not dist it with a system, so library and compiler wars fragment Linux into a pathetic mess. Everyone is doing it any way they feel like and its a mess. I will say Open, Net and Free are similiar enough so that you dont get pissed moving from machine to machin. OpenBSD still sucks, but has similar L&F.
Moving from Linux box to box, including Gentoo, is annoying and counterproductive. And Gentoo has not a prayer in hell to “be better” than LSB. LSB is lame, and its lameness will be mandated.
I only hope there continues to be room for FreeBSD to continue growing. Laughably, all the Line-Sux companies including VA Linusux systems, Slashdots owner, are all doing horribly.
Linux is a bear that needs a trainer, its been pissing and shitting where ever. I disagree that Gentoo is better than FreeBSD, would you bet your production on it? Where is Gentoo -CURRENT, -STABLE?
Gentoo is about where Slackware is. A script kiddie OS for people with too much time on hand. FreeBSD is stable, well tested, and run by a bunch of people (who at times are annoying themselves). But at least there is none of this zealot or totalitarian shit like Linux “likes” (FUCK YOU LINUS) and Theo de Raadt whim of the day. These people are a far cray from Thompson/Ritchie/Kernighan you wouldnt know it from the arrogant rhetoric.
Certain single people can do a lot. Sometimes one man leadership ceases to scale. This has happened with many projects. Linux has been enabled by a foolish industry who is prisoner to one man’s whims. Sounds like Germany 1939.
We, the computing public, are tired of one man bands and zealorty. I just need the thing to work. FreeBSD works. And I constantly poll anything newer or better, constantly. And I never find a reason to leave FreeBSD on junk hardware (2-way or smaller). Its its real iron, the vendors OS usually does just fine.
Oh come off it. Linux was made out of a hobby. Linus or no one else intended it to become part an enterprise quality OS.
You talk about about standards and how everthing is coherent. CHOICE is one of the great things about Linux (and all OSS).
We have a standard right now, Microsoft Products. Almost everyone uses them. Does it mean its the best? No.
And on the “Where is Gentoo -CURRENT, -STABLE?”. Ever heard of Debian? Gentoo was made to be a hobby type distro, not for production work.
Its ok to have some production distros and some “fun” ones. something BSD lacks is choice.
I like BSD, it’s just as good as linux. But this Linux/BSD flame war is pointless. THEY ARE FRIENDS. They both fight for (basically) the same ideals.
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=”x86″
lemme know how that works out for you.
This would be great for people to use. Grab an old PC, load FreeBSD, look up a wireless network card, voial, a router/firewall on the cheap.
a competition between a 5 year old and an adult?
you know…the kid bolts in front of the parent and hits the front door, then proclaims his or herself the winner and the parent just snikers and sayy “good job”.
It isn’t as stable as FreeBSD-STABLE, trust me… I use “x86” on my Gentoo installation and I get many broken packages. They just don’t have enough mainteners. However, I believe contrasutra is right. I guess BSD zealots are just angry and jealous that Linux is so popular. Yes, Linux is overhyped, but it isn’t as bad as they would like to.
Darwin/OS X doesn’t count. It *IS* and open source (if not Open Source) OS with 802.11a and 802.11g drivers. Sure the drivers themselves may not be open source, but that’s not the wording in the article here
Does it really matter who was the first within all the different open source communities? You people need to look at the broader computing industry and realize that Windows and OS X have had this for a few years.
Have any of you open source zealots that visit this site had any secondary education? Just wondering, because you act like little uneducated children with your toy operating systems.
“Have any of you open source zealots that visit this site had any secondary education? Just wondering, because you act like little uneducated children with your toy operating systems.”
I’m a computer science student of California State University, Bakersfield. In fact, I work for the Network Services department on campus. I’ve completed my major, but still have to take GE classes to graduate.
“Sam Leffler has added 802.11a and 802.11g support in FreeBSD-Current”
Yes, Linux might have these drivers as add on, but they are definately part of the main Linux kernel. Compare that to FreeBSD, where they are now fully integrated into it.
Why are we having a linux vs BSD discussion? Anybody who adopts linux is also in a good position to adopt bsd, and vice versa, so BSD and Linux can only be good for each other.
The windows market is huge. Instead of fighting cousin-helper linux and making yourself ridiculous, why don’t you BSD soldiers go out there and help grab some market share from windows?
What, are you too scared to fight?? You can’t see BSD winning or converting any windows users??? So you want to sit your ass at home, have linux go fight for you, and then come back here and tell us how BSD should be the one sitting on those linux boxes???
If you want recognition for your wonderful OS, go out and fight for yourselves, man, stop salivating over the linux’s meal. Stop waiting on the linux market. Get off the linux welfare and do something to encourage a healthy competition!
> Instead of fighting cousin-helper linux and making
> yourself ridiculous, why don’t you BSD soldiers go out
> there and help grab some market share from windows?
You hit the nail on the head with this one. There the difference lies. Winning somebody over is not FreeBSD aim. FreeBSD stands on its own, it doesn’t need millions of windows users flocking to it in order to be something. Perhaps Linux needs it, FreeBSD doesn’t. It does it’s work and does it well. It doesn’t have world domination plans.
*It’s an OS, for heavens sake, not a religion.*
> What, are you too scared to fight??
While Linux folks seem to be fighting with everybody else plus among itself (ooh, my Gentoo is longer than yours) FreeBSD doesn’t compete. It doesn’t need to. It’s mature OS and it gains its users without campaigns or banners flasing all over the web.
Aab, Thank you… thank you very much… my sentiments exactly…
lol! i like the nice hobby os that linux has become. :]
>> ..It does it’s work and does it well.
>>
So do Windows Servers. So does Solaris, and AIX, and HpUnix, and Linux. They all do their work and they all do it damn well. That’s not the point at all.
>> Winning somebody over is
>> not FreeBSD aim.
Right, and now that you have told us what FreeBSD is NOT aiming at, would you care to tell us what its objective are? Is it to to “serve” users??? To “do its work and do it well”?? But how is it gonna do that if it has no converts? Would you be perfectly happy to build a great OS that nobody uses or appreciates?
Instead of taking the easy route by hiding under the cover of elitism, how about actually doing something to expand the user-base? BSD fans would love a better market share, that’s for sure. The way some of them whine about linux says it all.
>> *It’s an OS, for heavens
>> sake, not a religion.*
Exactly, and that’s why its serious.
>>The windows market is huge. Instead of fighting cousin-helper linux and making yourself ridiculous, why don’t you BSD soldiers go out there and help grab some market share from windows?
First, let me say I’m no soldier, just a user. That argument is partially flawed, IMHO: There is truth there, in the sense that if FreeBSD wanted to gain market share, the rival to attack would be where the most market share is. However, I feel FreeBSD is more interested in “just working” than in marketing itself to users.
>>Is it to to “serve” users??? To “do its work and do it well”??
A fine job it does at that. You may see
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/introduction.h…
for the project goals.
>>But how is it gonna do that if it has no converts? Would you be perfectly happy to build a great OS that nobody uses or appreciates?
There are already thousands of people using it, that’s not really nobody using it or appreciating it. I immediately liked it after trying it for a while for the first time, and I’m using it in a server with very good results. Maintenance is easy, and the whole system is consistent. Plus, it’s not a distro but a full OS, so there are no issues of fragmentation, documentation that would work for one flavour but not the other, etc. The handbook is professionaly written and serves as an excellent unified, updated introduction to the system.
Some weak points, in no particular order: it’s less known, so it’s not as easy to find commercial support (which I have not needed, btw), not as many drivers and no native java. I sure wish java was natively supported on BSD, looks like the day is coming
Now, a comment aimed at nobody in particular, just something to think about for some of the previous posters: if this was a story about Linux, we sure would be seeing the board full of “woohoooo” and “keep up the good work”. Why do you feel the need to attack other OS for doing good things? Please do stop and think about this.
Now, a comment aimed at nobody in particular, just something to think about for some of the previous posters: if this was a story about Linux, we sure would be seeing the board full of “woohoooo” and “keep up the good work”. Why do you feel the need to attack other OS for doing good things? Please do stop and think about this.
I wish that would be true, but unfortunately there’s an increasing number of *bsd trolls that do what’s happening in this freebsd news, and even worse things.
Of course, they are minority among *bsd users, but it’s a fact that can’t be overlooked.
Well, I use Slackware and like it, I use FreeBSD and like it and I even use Windows (still 98SE) and can live it it.
To me all these stress about FreeBSD and Linux is the same we can see in siblings wars. They love and hate each other and are always competing.
To me, all this rivalling is a very positive thing that make our systems to improve at a higher pace.
And, of course, we can’t forget about all the projects that start with one eye in oue or another and found a way in the other one to.
We can’t forget about GNU project also, who pave the way we are running on now, and is experiencing some competition in with intel compilers what is also good.
Putting in one word: competition. It’s is good for us and specially good if it came from someone we can learn deeply from (looking on code, comments and so on).
[i]Putting in one word: competition. It’s is good for us and specially good if it came from someone we can learn deeply from (looking on code, comments and so on).[i]
Amen.
No one benefits from monopolies. Ever.
Competition is what drives the economy and is the basis of capitalism.
Bottom line: Open source is good for capitalism.
Capitalism is an economic system. Ecnomics involves money. There is no money to be made with open source software.
Bottom line: Open source is not good for capitalism.
Capitalism is an economic system. Ecnomics involves money. There is no money to be made with open source software.
Bottom line: Open source is not good for capitalism.
There is money to be made in everything. Only a shortsighted person would believe otherwise. Red Hat is making money using open source software. IBM too.
“Bottom line: Open source is not good for capitalism.”
I disagree. There is a lot o money to be earned with open source. Only it will be in difference way.
And the most important thing: it can be earned by YOU!
Just think serious about security and how everything is becoming interconnected and catch your chance. Most of people don’t have the needed skill to carry on, and will ask for your help. Think about support, integration and special needs. It’s a VERY BIG market.
And now, in my view, what open source is doing, and thats why so many companies are worried, is taking away the control from the big business only hands and giving to people that have a minimum of knowledge too.
That doesn’t mean that the big business can’t play in this party, for sure they will, and IBM is already dancing and singing as many others too. But, and this is my point, small companies that don’t have enough resources to pay big bucks and were forbidden to use the full benefits of computing, will pay small ones or some guys for help them.
“You people need to look at the broader computing industry and realize that Windows and OS X have had this for a few years.”
Really? They have? That’s really awesome. I was just wondering, because 802.11g (what the article was about, if you remember back that far) has only been an IEEE standard for a little over a year and a half. Consumer-grade 802.11g-capable products are relatively new to the general market (your Best Buys, etc.). That’s kind of cool that they offer historically retroactive support for recent innovations.
Geeez… GPL hell is trying to take over the world. Do we want a soviet union in software too???
Please please please don’t let this happen, support BSD and BSD licensed products..
For anyone who thinks they know what Linux NEEDS/WANTS/SHOULD BE CALLED — talk to Linus.
Linus treats Linux the same way now as he did 10 years ago as he did in 91. I’m quite certan (by reading many of his words to the community) that he doesn’t care about the politics, the market share, what it’s really called, etc…etc. About the only thing Linus seems to care about is whether or not Linux is where it can be on a technical level.
This article just seems pointless because I don’t think too many people care. It’d be a lot more interesting if it said “FreeBSD gets 11a/g support” — personally, I won’t be impressed until my broadcom chipset it supported. As for the person who mentioned that Linux a/g support had issues, did you even read what the guy said? “There are still issues with the driver.”
Yeah. I’m done here.
Uh? We already have soviet union type companies silly: like Microsoft. For that you can thank the great USA’s DOJ. You should know better than trolling.
As for the person who mentioned that Linux a/g support had issues, did you even read what the guy said? “There are still issues with the driver.”
are you talking about me, correcting Bas? the guy who googled for 802.11b and Linux, found the ar5k driver and danced around proclaiming Linux is the first without bothering to read that the driver is very preliminary. not being able to transmit packets to an access point is more than just “issues”.
now, thanks to Sam Leffler both Linux and FreeBSD have viable 802.11a/b support.
change that to 802.11a, and 802.11a/g… too many standards confuse my hands.
Will this need recompiling in FreeBSD 5.2?
And also, how about sound support? I have a SB16 compatible card, found some tutorials on the net which correspond to eachother, but they did not work anymore! And there are many more devices which FreeBSD does not support by default, and only maybe with undocumented recompile-options. (Yes, I tried the drivers floppy)
No, then give me NetBSD or OpenBSD (!) which support everything I need out of the box.
“Will this need recompiling in FreeBSD 5.2?”
it’s in FreeBSD, so no.
“And also, how about sound support? I have a SB16 compatible card, found some tutorials on the net which correspond to eachother, but they did not work anymore!”
before we start talking about recompiling, did you check the /boot/defaults/loader.conf for the correct overrides for loading the sb16 drivers? if so, did adding snd_sb16_load=”YES” to the /boot/loader.conf or manually loading the sb16 module with `kldload snd_sb16` not work? you do not normally have to add “device pcm” to the kernel config and recompile to enable sound.
could you elaborate on the “many more devices which FreeBSD does not support by default”? which devices?
DAMN LINKS! I just typed a really lengthy reply, pushed on the arrow towards the left AND GONE!
So let’s try it again but somehow a bit shorter
– FreeBSD’s manual states that a reason to recompile the kernel is to add support for “devices such as sound cards”.
– Various articles gave false hints about the options needed to be added to the kernel configuration. They also lied about some document containing more info – it didn’t exist.
– So I was angry, threw away FreeBSD and installed NetBSD.
– Then, I did not read well, FreeBSD’s handbook also states you can easily enable support for soundcards using kldload, in the Multimedia chapter.
– Now it seems FreeBSD supports more hardware than I thought. So I was wrong in that sense. Only two questions remain:
1) Where is a list what all those 3-letter device names stand for? If I have this flashcard reader, what device should I use?
2) Why aren’t all devices autodetected like on NetBSD an dOpenBSD? When I plug that reader in, these two autodetect them and allocate a device. In FreeBSD I need to use kldload, I suppose, as it didn’t autodetect.
“And what’s your point? BSD is more l33t? Anyway, it would be the opposite: BSD would be the free software ’cause you have more freedom with it. Both are definitely OSS even if you have more restrictions with the GPL.”
Yeah, the freedom to remove the freedom! How fun!
Yeah, the freedom to remove the freedom! How fun!
I wonder what does that mean?
“I wonder what does that mean?”
Someone wrote that the BSD-license whas better than GPL because it was more free. And yes i agree that it is more free, but i don’t agree that it is better. Because i think freedom to remove freedom will result in less freedom than freedom to do what you want except remove the freedom.
Hehe, hope that sentence made any sense. It was hard to write it.
But let me sum up:
GPL: Freedom to do what you want, under one condition: you must also give other people the same freedom. That’s the agreement to get the freedom.
BSD-license: Freedom to do whatever you want, even remove the same freedom.
IMHO, GPL results in more freedom than BSD.
But don’t get me wrong, i don’t think BSD is all bad, i just think GPL i better. The BSD-license is still way better than MS EULA.
FreeBSD’s manual states that a reason to recompile the kernel is to add support for “devices such as sound cards”.
yeah, this is one section the handbook needs to clarify a bit, but in most areas the documentation is incredible. hopefully, they’ll expand that section, because it does focus on compiling in support.
1) Where is a list what all those 3-letter device names stand for? If I have this flashcard reader, what device should I use?
if it’s usb, then I would think that you have support compiled into the kernel unless you removed the umass device from your kernel config. if you don’t, then lets move to the BSD forum and you can give me more details. post with make/model.
you can get a list of the driver names in the release notes for your release under hardware. from there, have a look under /boot/kernel for the .ko file for the driver. so, say the driver is sbc(which you might also try, if sb16 doesn’t work), we check the /boot/kernel directory and see the module name is snd_sbc.ko …
2) Why aren’t all devices autodetected like on NetBSD an dOpenBSD? When I plug that reader in, these two autodetect them and allocate a device. In FreeBSD I need to use kldload, I suppose, as it didn’t autodetect.
I’m probably not the one to best answer this, since I have worked a lot with either net or open. but, I would assume this is because Net/OpenBSD have support for more devices built into the kernel, instead of breaking things into modules. I could be wrong.
Wrong. You can only remove freedom for your additions.
The base is still there and public.
Maybe you misunderstood me, that’s what i meant. But now when i reread my post i see that i didn’t say “additions”.
But i still think the result is less free than the GPL.
I don’t think it’s fair that base your own app on other peoples work and then remove all the freedoms.
The NetBSD kernel indeed seems to be a monolithic 6 MB file.
Thanks for your comments, I just thought about giving FreeBSD another try, but then, halfway the installation, I remembered it also doesn’t support my IDE controller. FreeBSD constantly hangs with ata WRITE timeouts and resetting the device, the “solution” would be to disable DMA…
I think I do not really like that fiddling with all kinds of device settings… first using hints to disable DMA, then loading modules by hand…
Where that hint to disable DMA is not even documented! The handbook states that documenting all hints would be too much work and too quickly outdated…
But maybe in some time I might try it again! In 5.0, after having installed KDE, moving the pointer too fast was enough to make it lag, but that seemed to be solved in 5.1. And now it also adds this 802.11a/g support. So FreeBSD does improve, and that is a good thing.
>@Xbe : “Geeez… GPL hell is trying to take over the world. >Do we want a soviet union in software too???
>Please please please don’t let this happen, support BSD and >BSD licensed products..”
This is completely stupid…
Firstly, nobody forces any developer in the world to use GPL software, or to apply GPL to his creations. You prefer BSD ? Use/Write BSD softwares ! There is no government that says you are obliged to use GPL.
Secondly, you never thought that the reason of the success of GPL softwares are these specific terms of use ? That developers are sure that their work cannot be taken by egoistic people who just take the work of the others without giving back ? You just pay a GPL licence by giving back the freedom you got. What an unfair deal, indeed !
Your sentence makes sense. Not at first glance. But it doesn’t explain what you mean by “removing the freedom”.
There is no freedom removable, because you can’t retroactively modify a license (some will argue about that, but I’ll believe it until some court judges that one contractant can unilaterally change the contract to his profit). What is free remains free. So, somebody may take your BSDLed code, add something and make a proprietary product. He has added nothing to the free code. But he has taken nothing too.