[SWLUG] Re: Giving up Windows

[Jonathan Wright]

Peter Prior wrote:
> Steve Hill wrote:
> 
>>
>>> They are probably the biggest obstacle to trying linux for many who 
>>> are curious.
>>
>>
>>
>> A more recent problem is probably getting more important...  1 word: 
>> "Wireless".
>>
> 
> Not really IMHO.. Wireless cards tend to be hardware at least (no 
> softwireless cards).. most work with Linux drivers and those that don't 
> usually work with the ndiswrapper stuff (like my usb wifi adapter) so 
> you an use the vendors windows drivers under Linux.

In fact, almost all wireless cards/sticks/etc. are in some way software
controlled. That's why it's a bit to get any kind of drivers with them,
and then those that you have are in some way binary-only with a firmware
component.

The majority of wireless chip sets have software-controlled frequency
oscillators, which allows a 'firmware upgrade' to modify the way the
chip set works and hence work with a new or updated standard.

Under FCC (I think) rules, you can't see a re-programmable oscillators,
as you could in theory then use if for almost anything (oops, just give
me a sec, I'm going to have fun listening into military channels, just a
few tens-of-megahertz from wireless! :)

So to get around it, the direct API with the card now-a-days usually
comes as a binary-only component.

-- 
Jonathan Wright <mail at djnauk dot co dot uk>
   Life has no meaning unless we can enjoy what we've been given
--
Running on Gentoo Linux
   (2.6.10-gentoo-r7-djnauk-b03 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2100+ GNU/Linux)