laptop and wireless
in [Linux Hardware]
|
From: General Schvantzkoph on 25 May 2010 11:57 On Tue, 25 May 2010 15:31:37 +0000, Dan C wrote: > On Tue, 25 May 2010 13:21:16 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote: > >> On Tue, 25 May 2010 01:54:46 +0000, Dan C wrote: >> >>> On Mon, 24 May 2010 20:14:40 +0000, Jerry Peters wrote: >>> >>>> Richard Kimber <richardkimber(a)btinternet.com> wrote: >>>>> Hi: >>>>> >>>>> I'm thinking of getting a new laptop. Given that I've had endless >>>>> problems with the wireless on my old one (Acer Aspire 5002), I >>>>> wondered if anyone had a recommendation for a brand of laptop on >>>>> which the wireless "just works". I'll be using Ubuntu 10.04. I >>>>> have been looking at a Samsung: >>>>> >>>>> Samsung R730 17.3-inch Notebook (PDC T4300 2.1 GHz Processor, 4 GB >>>>> RAM, 320 GB HDD HDD, DVDRW, 6 Cell Battery, HD+, HDMI, Webcam, >>>>> Windows 7 Home Premium, Red/Silver) >>>>> >>>>> ... but I get the impression people have had wireless problems with >>>>> that. >>>>> >>>>> Thanks. >>>> >>>> You need to know what wireless chipset the laptop uses and if there's >>>> good support in the kernel. Find out the wireless chipset used and >>>> search on that. >>>> I've had good luck with the ath5k driver for Atheros 5xxx chipsets. >>>> AFAIK, Intel is also OK, but Broadcom is questionable (no vendor >>>> support). >>> >>> Not true about Broadcom. I have it in this laptop, and am using this >>> driver supplied by Broadcom. Works great. >>> >>> Here: http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php >>> >>> Please don't make claims about something you don't know about... >> >> That's not an open source driver so it's going to be a pain to use. The > > It seems quite simple to use, to me. Works great. > >> Intel drivers are in the kernel so there are no extra steps to get an >> Intel WiFi chip to work. With a binary driver, like Broadcoms, you have >> to do a reinstall every time you upgrade your kernel. Even if you are > > True, but how often do you upgrade the kernel? Even then, it's a 5- > minute process to reinstall the Broadcom. > >> All things being equal, or close to equal, you are always better off >> choosing a device that has a kernel driver. > > "Better off"? Not sure what that is supposed to mean. If you have a > Broadcom wifi chip, I'd think you'd be "better off" using this driver > than not having any connectivity at all, eh? > >> Unlike graphics chips, where >> the alternative to using a binary driver is a 90% loss of performance, >> we are fortunate to have a couple of wireless choices, Intel and >> Atheros, which are fully supported in the kernel and uncompromised >> performance. > > Understood. My point was that there are still other choices as well, > that work perfectly. Also, the OP claimed that there was "no vendor > support", which I responded to because that simply isn't true. If you run a leading edge distro then you have kernel upgrades about once a week so having to reinstall binary drivers under those circumstances is really painful. If you run something ultra stable like CentOS then kernel upgrades happen months apart, however it happens even there. I will admit that the state of Broadcom drivers is better then it was, I'd rather have their so called hybrid drivers then the old ndiswrapper solution. I had a laptop that had a Broadcom chip in it, I was able to make it work with ndiswrapper on Fedora Core 3 or 4 but I was never able to get it to work after that. When I bought my current laptop I made sure it had an Intel wireless chip which has worked seamlessly with every distro that I've put on it. Speaking of that old laptop, I just put Fedora 13 on it for my sister. Another problem with binary drivers came up and that's how you handle obsolete hardware. The laptop has an Nvidia 440 GO graphics chip on it which requires the legacy Nvidia drivers. The legacy drivers aren't in the Fusion repositories yet so I was forced to stick with the Nouveau driver which has miserable performance. To be fare there are downsides to the Linux approach where drivers are tied to a particular kernel which makes it difficult to use a stable distro on anything other then a server. The reason I put F13 on my sister's laptop, which had been running CentOS which was a much better choice for her because it never breaks, was because she bought a new HP All in One which is unsupported in earlier versions of CUPS. The printer worked fine with the older HP drivers even though CentOS 5.5 didn't recognize the printer, but the scanner didn't work. F12 couldn't handle it either so I had to use F13 which handles it fine, however now I have to support her on a distro that's has daily updates that are going to confuse her and have the potential of breaking the system.
From: Thomas Richter on 25 May 2010 13:41 General Schvantzkoph wrote: > > Make sure you get an Intel wireless chipset, Intel is fully committed to > providing open source drivers, Intel chipsets always work. For some definitions of "work", maybe. I've here an iwl3945 using the open source driver on a 2.6.32 kernel, and the best you could say is that it "sort-of" works. It has troubles connecting to access points, weak transmissions, bad connections... It always worked under the Redmond Os without problems, but Linux and wireless is asking for trouble - still. I don't know how the ath5k chipsets "work", I haven't tried them yet, but I had two laptops, both with intel chips, and I was "less than impressed" by their performance. Greetings, Thomas
From: Henrik Carlqvist on 26 May 2010 03:08 Dan C <youmustbejoking(a)lan.invalid> wrote: > On Tue, 25 May 2010 13:21:16 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote: >> With a binary driver, like Broadcoms, you have >> to do a reinstall every time you upgrade your kernel. > True, but how often do you upgrade the kernel? At least every time you upgrade your distribution. > Even then, it's a 5- minute process to reinstall the Broadcom. In 5 years, when you upgrade your Slackware 13.1 system to Slackware 14.3 with kernel 2.8.14, do you think that your vendor is most interested in maintaining a driver for an obsolete hardware for free or seelling you a new piece of hardware? With access to the source code you are in control and don't have to worry about such concerns. regards Henrik -- The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is: hc3(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers: root(a)localhost postmaster(a)localhost
From: Dan C on 26 May 2010 08:51 On Wed, 26 May 2010 09:08:14 +0200, Henrik Carlqvist wrote: > Dan C <youmustbejoking(a)lan.invalid> wrote: > >> On Tue, 25 May 2010 13:21:16 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote: >>> With a binary driver, like Broadcoms, you have to do a reinstall every >>> time you upgrade your kernel. > >> True, but how often do you upgrade the kernel? > > At least every time you upgrade your distribution. Yup. About once a year. Not a big problem. In fact, not a problem at all. >> Even then, it's a 5- minute process to reinstall the Broadcom. > In 5 years, when you upgrade your Slackware 13.1 system to Slackware > 14.3 with kernel 2.8.14, do you think that your vendor is most > interested in maintaining a driver for an obsolete hardware for free or > seelling you a new piece of hardware? With access to the source code you > are in control and don't have to worry about such concerns. Oh, I have no argument against preferring open source, if available. However, my main point (again...) is that I was correcting the OP who claimed that Broadcom did not provide a driver. They do. If a person has this hardware in their system, what should they do? NOT use the vendor's driver because they don't have the source code? -- "Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". "Bother!" said Pooh, as he backed into a squad car. Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/ Thanks, Obama: http://brandybuck.site40.net/pics/politica/thanks.jpg
From: Michal Jaegermann on 26 May 2010 11:38
General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > The laptop has an Nvidia 440 GO graphics chip on it > which requires the legacy Nvidia drivers. The legacy drivers aren't in > the Fusion repositories yet so I was forced to stick with the Nouveau > driver which has miserable performance. Not at all; in general. Only you have to install mesa-dri-drivers-experimental package which is not a default set. That does have an "experimental" status so it may fail to work in your case but you would not know until you tried. --mj |