Crossroads

[Imre Kaloz]

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:03:48 +0100, Hans Cats <hanscats at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2007/3/13, 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