OpenBSD Ahead of Linux for Wi-Fi Drivers

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 4:16 pm

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl ... 12/1837238
"It looks like some kernel developers have noticed that the OpenBSD project is including reverse-engineered drivers for wireless ethernet cards while Linux is still using binary blobs. A large part of the issue is that much OpenBSD development takes place abroad, where having to do clean-room reverse-engineering isn't as important."

"Christoph Hellwig took another stance, 'please don't let this reverse engineering idiocy hinder wireless driver adoption, we're already falling far behind openbsd who are very successfully reverse engineering lots of wireless chipsets.'"

What do you guys think of this?

I've been starting to use OpenBSD quite a lot lately, and I noticed that for version 3.9, released May 1st, they developed a Free, reverse-engineered driver for NVIDIA's nForce onboard ethernet adapters, while FreeBSD, in version 6 and on, includes the binary-only driver for Linux, with a BSD wrapper.

Personally, I'm all for OpenBSD's approach, it just seems better in my mind.

(Sure, Theo de Raadt has said some things that anger some Linux users, but I'm quite sure that Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond has a similar amount of statements that anger some people)

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 4:32 pm

Doesn't sway me in the least. I still think that wireless is far too insecure at this stage of it's development. I don't use it, so OpenBSD is not even a consideration for me.

Heck, I don't even own a cell phone.

For all I do, Linux is still the better solution.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 4:46 pm

Judland wrote:Doesn't sway me in the least.

That was never my intent of posting this, I just found it interesting that OpenBSD was ahead of Linux in an area that is as desktop oriented as wireless support, because OpenBSD has for years had a reputation of not being very desktop friendly (Which isn't true at all, I use it on my Mac mini with KDE and it works wonderfully and I even have some limited 3D acceleration through GLX indirect rendering).

Judland wrote:I still think that wireless is far too insecure at this stage of it's development.

If you use my "insane over the top" method, not even the NSA will crack it within 10,000 years.

Judland wrote:Heck, I don't even own a cell phone.

You and I are very much like one another is this world of normal people.

Sorry, couldn't resist getting weird there for a moment, I can't a afford a cellphone these days, and I don't need one either.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 5:11 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote:
Judland wrote:Doesn't sway me in the least.
That was never my intent of posting this..

Oh, okay.

Well, I guess all I can think of as a comment is "good for OpenBSD". Sounds like they're doing some good work.

I still ain't going to use it, though.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 6:26 pm

Judland wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote:
Judland wrote:Doesn't sway me in the least.
That was never my intent of posting this..
Oh, okay.

Well, I guess all I can think of as a comment is "good for OpenBSD". Sounds like they're doing some good work.

I still ain't going to use it, though.

The reason I thought it was interesting is because, in the Linux world we are very well aware that we need better support for wireless networking, and meanwhile, the OpenBSD guys are just reverse engineering a crapload of stuff and getting a lot of cards to work. I just find it a little facinating, because OpenBSD has a much much smaller userbase than Linux, and yet they still have better support for wireless.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 10:33 am

Judland wrote:Doesn't sway me in the least. I still think that wireless is far too insecure at this stage of it's development.

Same here. Nothing but cat 5 at my house. I'm glad thery're making progress with better WiFi support, but it doesn't really affect me.

If it's on BSD, I imagine it will be on Linux before long. It's good that both communities feed each other.

granduke · Post by **granduke** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 11:31 am

Gomer_X wrote:
Judland wrote:Doesn't sway me in the least. I still think that wireless is far too insecure at this stage of it's development.
Same here. Nothing but cat 5 at my house. I'm glad thery're making progress with better WiFi support, but it doesn't really affect me.

I hope to lose wi-fi in my house this weekend. My old laptop's card is only WEP and I can scan to find other 4 networks. That I don't trust.

I'm going with gigabit and running an IPCop box.

Anyone else running IPCop?

granduke

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 5:34 pm

I love my wireless. I just dmz it.

Chess · Post by **Chess** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:55 pm

I don't dmz my wireless, but I use WPA with a 63 random character password so I think it's pretty safe.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:06 am

Chess wrote:I don't dmz my wireless, but I use WPA with a 63 random character password so I think it's pretty safe.

It's gonna take right around 10,000 years to crack that!