Juan M. Duran wrote:
On mar, 2006-01-24 at 13:10 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Are there any GPL'd 100% open source wifi drivers
in Linux kernel such that it is NOT necessary
to recompile your wifi modules at every kernel upgrade?
I'm currently using rt2500.ko module, for ralink chips. The rt2400 (for
the "b" adapter) and rt2500 (for the "g") now come with mostly all
distributions. The 2500 chip is not precisely the best but is cheap and
works in monitor mode. I have a pair of PCMCIA cards with it and no
problem.
And the module is GPL'd, indeed.
And from what I have seen, that's about it for pure open source WiFi
drivers. The problem, as I understand it, is that because of FCC
regulations regarding power and such, card manufacturers do not want the
liability of someone modifying one of their cards such that it violates
any FCC regulations. As a result, Linux WiFi support is pretty much
considered a mess - about where USB support was two years ago, at best.
Aside from the RaLink-based cards, your next best bet is Intel IPW2200BG
which is well supported and nearly 100% functional in all regards,
including now being supported as a Host AP. Intel supplies the firmware,
which is tightly supported by open source drivers.
Driver: http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/
Firmware: http://support.intel.com/support/notebook/sb/CS-006408.htm
WPA/WPA2 support: http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant/
As I've mentioned before, I have this card in my laptop and it works fine.
Note that there is steady and ongoing development on WiFi support on
Linux, including this chipset, so it is not unusual to have to update
the driver and/or firmware with a kernel upgrade.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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