Crossroads

Tue Mar 13 19:28:37 CET 2007

On 2007年3月13日 19:03:48 +0100, Hans Cats <hanscats at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2007年3月13日, dimitris <dimitris at gmail.com>:
>>>> Intel's laptop-oriented chips have GPL drivers, albeit with binary
>> modules - but not *kernel* binary modules.
>>>> The 3945abg driver uses a binary userspace daemon and a binary on-chip
>> microcode:
>>>> http://ipw3945.sourceforge.net/
>>>> The 2200bg/2945abg driver relies on a binary on-chip firmware:
>>>> http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/
>>>> The latter one is in the mainline kernel too.

> A better option would be to use one of the chipset that has runtime 
> firmware
> that (even) OpenBSD is allowed to distribute.
>> You'll find a good article on the problems with binary firmwares on
> http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/293
>> For a round up:
>> atu (4) - Atmel AT76C50x USB IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
> ral (4) - Ralink Technology IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device (2nd
> gen 802.11 Ralink)
> rum (4) - Ralink Technology USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
> zyd (4) - Zydas ZD1211 USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network deviceMarcin
> Juszkiewicz already mentioned some of them.
>> Hans

The PCI based devices (Intel and the first Ralink) would harldy fit into a 
phone both physically and power-usage wise. Regarding the USB ones, the 
Atmel is pretty much EOL'ed as far as I know, and the driver for the 
others are not stable nor too portable. And we didn't speak about wireless 
characterisks, sensivity and other "lower" priority stuff.
Imre