Posted by: Administrator
on January 16, 2006 07:22 PM
There is no point in using closed source drivers when free drivers are available.
The rt2x00 driver is available, and the authors have asked for help using and debugging their driver on the very same Wiki the author is referring to.
I haven't said "open-source or nothing". I use some closed source stuff myself, but only where its absolutely unavoidable. For a public tutorial about "Building a Linux home media center" on linux.com, I'd prefer a non-tainted solution.
If 1000 readers follow this tutorial, 1000 readers will be locked into closed-source drivers unnecessarily. OTOH, if 1000 readers help beta testing the free rt2x00 driver and wpa_supplicant,
we'd have a nicely working open source driver in no time.
Btw, the "tainted" messages aren't there for nothing. It is very obvious that the kernel developers community is turning more and more against closed drivers. While that's not my personal attitude, it is reasonable to warn that close-source driver users may find themselves abandoned sooner than they expect.
"Use what works" is too simplistic. If that's your attitude, you'd better buy your media center in the supermarket.
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Re:why ndiswrapper?
Posted by: Administrator on January 16, 2006 07:22 PMThere is no point in using closed source drivers when free drivers are available.
The rt2x00 driver is available, and the authors have asked for help using and debugging their driver on the very same Wiki the author is referring to.
I haven't said "open-source or nothing". I use some closed source stuff myself, but only where its absolutely unavoidable. For a public tutorial about "Building a Linux home media center" on linux.com, I'd prefer a non-tainted solution.
If 1000 readers follow this tutorial, 1000 readers will be locked into closed-source drivers unnecessarily. OTOH, if 1000 readers help beta testing the free rt2x00 driver and wpa_supplicant,
we'd have a nicely working open source driver in no time.
Btw, the "tainted" messages aren't there for nothing. It is very obvious that the kernel developers community is turning more and more against closed drivers. While that's not my personal attitude, it is reasonable to warn that close-source driver users may find themselves abandoned sooner than they expect.
"Use what works" is too simplistic. If that's your attitude, you'd better buy your media center in the supermarket.
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