I'm going to take a pause from my usual blog topics and discuss something very dear to everyone's heart, wifi.
This weekend I stopped by wal-mart to look around. My wife and I have been wanting to move the computer upstairs for some time but have been prevented by the need to be physically connected to the router. While I was at wal-mart I saw a 802.11n wireless PCI network card made by Linksys. I was hoping that I would find somewhere written on it that it would work with Linux. I'll I could find was something about window vista which I could care less about. Yes, I could have done a little googling to find out if it was Linux-friendly or not but I just wanted to buy it, slap it in and run. I had dreams in my mind that I would have completed the transfer of the computer upstairs by the end of the day.
So I bought the card, went home, installed it and fired up Ubuntu 7.04. iwconfig showed nothing. but lspci showed something that would send me into shock "02:07.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43XG (rev 01)". Yes, the infamous broadcom chip. One of the biggest reasons for the non-widespread adoption of Linux.
I quickly performed a google search for driver support. There were a few forum posts on the subject but nothing would seem to work. I even built my own kernel using 2.6.25-rc4 in hopes that I could get it to work. So now I'm sitting here using the vesa display driver cause nvidia refuses to work until I rebuild the modules.
I'm currently upgrading to 7.10 hoping that somehow it'll at least recognize the card. Most likely I'll be returning the card shortly.
To Linksys, who benefits from Linux in its router products, NAS products and more. Who, I thought, was out to make money: I will never buy another one of your products again until you support Linux. I would suggest you (linksys) not buy broadcom chipsets. They are preventing you from entering a market with virtually no competition. Yes, the Linux Market is wide open! If you could just put somewhere on your box, however small a print you want, that you support Linux, you are going to make money. I will personally give you my money, and so will many others. You also have to gain that people like me will not blog about you and expose your apparent enmity you have with your customers.
Linksys, you make money from Linux. You could be making more. Shape up!