Garrett D'Amore wrote: > More to the point, you should complain to HP, and ask them to fix > their broken hardware that can only work properly with Windows. There has been a fair amount of consternation around HP's policy on this, and TBQH, I haven't seen if anything has changed. I know there hasn't been a BIOS update in a while, and really don't expect one. > The whitelist is a firmware *bug* in HP's BIOS, as far as I'm > concerned. (Yes, NDIS and other such hacks can workaround the bug, > but lets not pretend that they are "fixes".) If you're a big > corporate purchaser, you should pressure HP to either fix the bug or > replace all of your units with ones that can support a better WIFI part. I am not in a position to replace my laptops. I'm not in a position to buy a laptop with the promise of a $50/month repayment..... And as for putting pressure on HP. heh. With top sales guy being a former (and probably disgruntled) employee, this is probably as long a battle as Acroread on x86.
I just vote +2 on the WPA feature for bcmndis. If I'm the guy with these parts and everyone else has moved to intel, or atheros, then I guess the community has spoken (or folks who have those parts just don't care about WPA). > > Add HP to my list of vendors not to purchase equipment from. The laptops are a ZE4100 (P4M 1.7Ghz) and a ZE5185 (P4 2.4Ghz), and while being a few years old, are still very usable. I am not happy about the white list, but there's not much I can do. I haven't bought HP since.... > > -- Garrett > > James Cornell wrote: >> How's that my fault? I don't buy from vendors that do such things >> because I know what I am looking for. I'm sorry that you happened >> to have chosen the wrong adapter, but you should take it back if >> possible. I agree partially that drivers would help the adoption >> rate, and I'm sure Sun is willing to expand its development efforts >> into said devices, but there' so many of them out there we just >> can't support them all. This is the reason I brought up the >> sustainability aspect, as Sun does not charge for licenses, only >> support, and even gives media out to most people, there's a problem >> with balancing out the money generated from support and other >> products, where it can allow development of new drivers for devices >> that are 5x harder to support due to many details being omitted. >> >> James >> On Jun 6, 2008, at 10:15 AM, Ben Taylor wrote: >> >> >>> James Cornell wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Yiannis, >>>> >>>> If you took basic economics you'd find out that there is always >>>> balance. Efficiency is key, and it is an understatement to say >>>> that supporting Broadcom equipment is inefficient. The lack of >>>> proper documentation is the problem, just as it has been discussed >>>> to death with Sun's older SPARC boards and OpenBSD, regarding >>>> NDA's and availability. Broadcom is an allusion to the old Sun >>>> way of doing things. >>>> >>>> Supporting equipment without documentation and/OR source (Neither >>>> will happen in a workable state based on prior dealings) is near >>>> impossible. Even with the most talented people working on the >>>> issue at hand, economically speaking it is exponentially more >>>> costly to support completely closed hardware, as it requires more >>>> developers, more man hours, more testing, and a slew of hardware >>>> acquisitions for the tests for multiple people no less. A lot of >>>> the people involved with the actual porting of Broadcom hardware >>>> through reverse engineering are hired by corporations who can >>>> float the labor bill. Sun so far is mainly interested with Intel, >>>> AMD and NVIDIA as they do not like vendors who provide no >>>> alternatives. >>>> >>>> Broadcom will not deliver binary for Solaris/OpenSolaris WIFI. >>>> Broadcom will not release specifications even under NDA. Broadcom >>>> will not release source. Broadcom will not support reverse >>>> engineered drivers or NDIS driven drivers. Broadcom will not >>>> support 64-bit computing except through narrow channel OEM >>>> dealings. Broadcom has always had bad PR with vendors who support >>>> and/or development hardware/software for multiple platforms. >>>> >>>> Nothing will change the fact this is impossible to support, I'd >>>> personally rather have NDIS support worked on than to try and >>>> write a crippled reverse engineered driver, they are less reliable >>>> from my experience than NDIS, and I really hate NDIS as it is. >>>> >>>> What's 10 bucks? Well if you live in America that's nothing, with >>>> the gas prices, the bad economy that no one will admit to, the >>>> rising inflation, 10 bucks can barely afford you two drinks at >>>> Starbucks. I'd personally drop Starbucks and opt for brewing my >>>> own, as I already have, and thus can buy better hardware because I >>>> am more efficient. >>>> >>>> >>> thanks. $10 buying a new mini-pci card gets me a locked up laptop. >>> Did you not read *HP WhiteList*. >>> >>> You may think you're doing everyone a service by pontificating the >>> way you do, but half the >>> you're just wrong. >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> laptop-discuss mailing list >> laptop-discuss at opensolaris.org >> >
