Sweet Lou wrote:
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Both are older Linksys cards, 802.11b. The laptop's is a wpc11 version 3, the desktop uses a wmp11
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Now that I think about it, I had an old Orinoco PCMCIA card that Debian Woody detected when it was stable, and it also worked without firmware. They are kernel supported as are some newer G cards, I guess the issue is some of the older cards worked without firmware, whereas most of the current cards don't. Thanks for reminding me of that, good call!
Tortanick wrote:
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some of the Kernel Devs really don't like those drivers, to them its a violation of the GPL, and well they wrote the kernel, who are we to argue.
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That is understandable. Though they know full well that the vast majority of users have cards made by those manufacturers, I'm glad that they stand their ground and don't allow closed code into the kernel. They do have attempts at open source ones, which "work" better than nothing, like nv for NVidia, but comparing the closed source drivers to the open source is like racing automobiles against bicycles, it isn't even close. There isn't any room for debate on if it is a violation of the GPL, it would be an amazingly clear violation of the GPL. I believe that is what usually stops people from including those drivers in their distro, the "fear" of being non-GPL compliant. I know Ubuntu had discussed shipping the NVidia and ATI drivers in the upcoming release, and those plans changed at the last minute.
Peace,
JimBass
