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Why does Wi-Fi have to be such a pain in Linux?

Greetings leopard,
I would love to hear from you in how you were able to get it to work with the 4318 Chipset. I have b43-fwcutter installed, installed/extracted the required firmware and when I go into System>Administration>Additional Drivers the b43 drivers do not show up. I even installed the STA drivers just to throw something out there and they are not seen under Additional Drivers. The ONLY driver that shows up is "Software Modem"
Still working it and refuse to wave the white flag of defeat.

All the best and Happy Holidays!

Ian

Posted 12-22-2010 at 06:12 AM by ichase ichase is offline

	Why does Wi-Fi have to be such a pain in Linux? LOL, I had the same exact card, and the same exact trouble getting it to work. You need b43-fwcutter.
	Posted 12-21-2010 at 03:23 PM by lupusarcanus

Why does Wi-Fi have to be such a pain in Linux?

Quote:

To assume that popular devices should work under Linux, because it's a 'simple task' to support it, is getting cocky.

I would certainly not say it's cocky at all. You failed to answer the one question I originally posted. The ability is already there. Parted Magic is run on a live CD, it loads itself into RAM then ejects the CD. It's an awesome tool, but is still based on the Linux kernel via an independent distro. If this independent distro is able to run this proprietary piece of hardware with no one complaining about it, and not to mention pretty much effortlessly, then one would think that the other open source distrobutions would be able to as well.
I certainly do not see that as being cocky as much as I see it as simple common sense?

Yes, this all boils down to a firmware issue. If you can get your hands on the correct firmware and run it correctly you MIGHT get your wireless working.

ATI and Nvidia actually work fairly well out of the box in most distros.... At least they did for me. I've run on a rig with Nvidia using Mandriva 2010.0 KDE and it worked great. The current lappy is running ATI Video (UE 2.8) and I have yet to see a hickup.

All the best,

Ian

Posted 12-21-2010 at 07:19 AM by ichase ichase is offline

Why does Wi-Fi have to be such a pain in Linux?

Unfortunately, wifi is just one of those types of devices that does not have a large base of good developers haking up drivers for you. Additionally, some wireless manufactures do not supply Linux Drivers.

Also, some devices require 'firmware' to be loaded into the device when it is powered on. Linux OSes, especially popular ones, can not always include this firmware because it's a binary blob that is generally copyright protected and therefor not 'free'.

To assume that popular devices should work under Linux, because it's a 'simple task' to support it, is getting cocky.

Are you going to complain about Nvidia and ATI not working to their fullest potential out of the box? These drivers are also binary blobs that can not or should not be included with any Linux distribution.

Posted 12-20-2010 at 07:56 PM by lumak lumak is offline

Linuxville

Thanks for the kind response wagaboy.

Posted 12-16-2010 at 06:34 AM by ichase

	Linuxville Nice article ! I'm not too familiar with all the distros, but your house hunting metaphors would help people in understanding what a distro means and how to go about selecting one. Thanks !
	Posted 12-15-2010 at 07:27 PM by wagaboy

Why does Wi-Fi have to be such a pain in Linux?

Why does Wi-Fi have to be such a pain in Linux?

Why does Wi-Fi have to be such a pain in Linux?

Why does Wi-Fi have to be such a pain in Linux?

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