Dear Carl-Daniel, Am Donnerstag, 16. Februar 2006 00:49 schrieb Carl-Daniel Hailfinger:
Hans-Peter Jansen schrieb:
Am Mittwoch, 15. Februar 2006 12:29 schrieb Carl-Daniel Hailfinger:
Peter Czanik schrieb:
This only affects a *small* subset of ISDN and DSL cards and exactly one wireless chipset (atheros). I fully expect that the GPL driver
The only wireless chipset/pci card, which handles wpa encryption - cool. Especially, since a SuSE colleague actively recommended such cards: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=104662#c2
Yes, the state of wireless under Linux is bad. Fortunately, a bunch of developers have pooled their efforts to get wireless support for every available chipset into mainline. I expect this project to be finished within the next 6 months. If you want WPA under Linux with GPL drivers, try the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG chipset. Prism54.org seems to have preliminary WPA support as well.
Try to buy a PCI card with PRO/Wireless 2200BG chipset. At least as I found out in my awful trail last year, it's just not available! (not talking about miniPCI adapters, btw). I'm heavily commited to SUSE since a decade, I've learned the hard way to try to select hardware, which simply runs out of the box, and avoid preliminary driver stuff most of the day, since I'm forced to get some real work done by the help of computers, but still using much time by instructing computers to behave..
I don't believe, that AVM will/is able to provide any userspace solution for ISDN fax emulation in the 10.1 timeframe. AFAICS, there's even a framework missing - if possible at all - which would allow this and meet the tight timing requirement of such a task.
If they don't want to provide a userspace solution, they can still ship binary only kernel modules. And the infrastructure for that is in place. Please look at the following link for details. http://www.suse.de/~agruen/KMPM/KernelModulePackagesManual-CODE10.pdf
That's the theory with pronouncement of the words "they can still"! I already tried to rebuild the AVM driver rpm for 9.3 with current stuff because of some problems with the DSL PCI card, and it was such a mess, that I finally resigned to build a proper rpm (and just used the .ko, I needed)! [I do build a lot RPMs, even before breakfast and caffeination ;)] I fear, AVM is just missing the man power to provide a stable long term SUSE kernel support for such a critical mission (kernel modules are a delicate mission, no matter how much support is given by SUSE/community in this regard!). And the quietness in the course of this thread doesn't turn me optimistic either..
Sure, disappointing customers definitely reduces the support load in every company. Such an attitude will actively damage the reputation of SUSE and you know - one disappointed customer has much more weight (and will spread the word louder) than ten satisfied ones.
I hope this will not damage the reputation of SUSE. I expect that you will be able to download all binary only drivers in RPM packages before 10.1 hits the shelves. So the only people disappointed will be those who don't download the drivers before installing SUSE Linux 10.1 and have no other way to obtain these drivers.
I really hope, AVM prove me wrong, and prove you right. ATM, I only find you overly optimistic, which is an attribute, I must have lost somewhere over the last two decades where I've been involved in that business. Pete