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Operating Systems Software Security Wireless Networking Hardware

More on OpenBSD 3.7 Release 149

Posted by timothy from the quest-for-firmware dept.
putko writes "As previously reported, OpenBSD 3.7 is released. Here's some interviews with the people behind the release about the new features, including information about which companies are complying with requests for documentation and permission to freely distribute required firmware, and which are not. Ralink Tech and Realtek 'GOOD,'Intel 'BAD.' The next time I build/buy a wireless product, I'll want Realtek or Ralink Tech inside -- because getting software to work with it will be easier. Ralink Tech and Realtek are Taiwanese, by the way."
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More on OpenBSD 3.7 Release More

More on OpenBSD 3.7 Release

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  • Are there actually any Free 802.11g drivers for Linux? Last time I checked, the only one in the kernel was prism54, which is useless for any device you can buy at the moment. :(
    • Yes: http://madwifi.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] has drivers for Atheros chipset.

      Really, the problem is that Broadcom makes the most common 11g chipset, and they don't provide squat.

      • Re:Free 802.11g drivers? (Score:2, Informative)

        by mjg59 ( 864833 )
        The madwifi drivers are not entirely Free - there's a large closed section of driver that runs on the host processor (it's not merely firmware for the card). People are working on drivers for the softmac prism54s, the Intel 2200 has an entirely open driver (but awkward restrictions on distributing the firmware. Thanks, Intel), there's an experimental driver for TI's acx111 hardware, and the RT2500 is an 11g part.
      • I've never been able to get the madwifi stuff working particularly well, and a look at the Open Source 802.1x drivers suggests that the madwifi stuff won't work as gracefully as it should with newer security methods.

        Also, a glance at madwifi's CVS suggests that the coders for that are almost (but not quite) as bad as I am about maintaining code.

        Having said that, madwifi is bloody good software and SHOULD be in the mainstream kernel. It has been out long enough and would have no impact on existing code

      • Yeah, I have Atheros 11g integrated into my Toshiba laptop, it works great on SuSE(even with WPA). It didn't work with Fedora, but that didn't surprise me(what does work with Fedora?). I think it worked after about a half an hour of trouble on Mandrake 10.0.

    • Re:Free 802.11g drivers? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cid Highwind ( 9258 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @09:22PM (#12602414) Homepage
      Yes, Ralink provides Free (as in GPL) Linux drivers for their rt2400/rt2500 cards here [ralinktech.com]. My roommate has a laptop with an rt2500 wifi card, and it works beautifully in Linux.
      • This looks like The One, at least once they port it to 2.6 and get it merged[0].

        Now if I could only find somewhere to buy a (PCI) card using the rt2500, then I could finally ditch this SMC 2802W V2 piece of shit.

        [0] and Debian makes a release containing the subsequent kernel... ;)
      • I can vouch for this, I'm using the RT2500 on my Averatec 3200 Laptop right now. Works beautifully, but the driver is a little buggy. OpenBSD supports it out of the box, which is neat. (K)Ubuntu forced me to install it manually (hard, when your only connection is wifi).
        • Works beautifully, but the driver is a little buggy.

          Watch out if you enabled 4K stacks for the kernel, or SMP, or a few other mystery things. The current drivers are basically straight ports of the NDIS drivers with a few add-ons.

    • Re:Free 802.11g drivers? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ruie ( 30480 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @10:18PM (#12602676) Homepage
      There are drivers for Intel wireless chips:

      The only catch is that firmware is still closed-source. It can be downloaded, but I am not certain about redistribution conditions.

  • Firmwares and drivers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by puiahappy ( 855662 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @09:03PM (#12602311) Homepage
    Have any of you noticed the the hardware producers are standing in the way of open source software ? If you intend to install a Linux BSD or SunOS, drivers for the videocard`s, LAN card`s, TV Tuners, digital camera`s are very hard to find. On the driver CD suplied by the vendor you will find only drivers for Windows. So the point of this news should be not who are able to distribute the firmwares then why are they not suplied by the vendor on the install CD and why can`t they be included in the OS.
    • I wouldn't really put it as "standing in the way", since I doubt their main goal in this is to prevent the growth of open source software. In all likelyhood, they simply realize that 90%+ of their consumers have windows boxes, and they dont wish to spend the extra time/resources/manhours to produce drivers for the niche linux crowd. Its just a simple cost/benefit thing.

      • Re:Firmwares and drivers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dmaxwell ( 43234 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @11:30PM (#12602923)
        It still costs very little to supply the information necessary to create a driver. According to the interview, they came up with a wireless driver within a week of getting specs. It is rough and work is ongoing but there is an OpenBSD Ralink driver now. There is little good reason to slather secret sauce over this information. The FOSS kernel projects are perfectly capable of developing their own drivers given a few sheets of info that costs little to provide.

      • Re:Firmwares and drivers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tony-A ( 29931 ) on Sunday May 22, 2005 @04:18AM (#12603748)
        Except that there are some of us who do not use OpenBSD but consider it as probably the best indicator of hardware quality and the quality of what the support will be for Linux and even Windows. Even to the point of using OpenBSD support as a litmus test for Windows hardware.

        Put it this way. If the hardware gives OpenBSD troubles, how much do you want to risk that the troubles affect ONLY OpenBSD? Conversely, if OpenBSD has no troubles supporting the hardware, any troubles elsewhere are at least fixable. OpenBSD may be a small niche, but it is a niche that carries a lot more weight than its numbers would suggest.
        • Mod parent up! He's pointed out a very important thing about OpenBSD: there
          are lots of us who don't consider a machine to be completely trustworthy
          unless it's supported by OpenBSD, even if we don't intend on running OpenBSD
          on that machine.
    • Sorry, but since I have no mod points, I have nothing useful to do, and this is Slashdot:

      drivers for the video card's, LAN card's, TV Tuners, digital camera's

      Why does your plural form of the words 'driver' and 'Tuners' just add an 's', while your plural form of the words 'card', 'videocard' and 'camera' require the apostrophe?

      You got 'news' and 'firmwares' right. What's (that is a contraction, one of the times when you _do_ use apostrophe-s) the thinking there? If you're not going to make the effort
    • I think its very sad for windows that it is hopelessly hardware and driver-crippled out of the box, and it needs vendor-supplied drivers to merely get up and working. Linux and the *BSDs just dont have this problem.

      I mean, you cant even install Windows onto a PA-RISC, UltraSPARC or MIPS box for Linus' sake! How on earth do windows users cope?! Its like they are second class IT citizens, struggling to get by with a sluggish, unstable legacy OS that no one wants to help them with :(

    • Have any of you noticed the the hardware producers are standing in the way of open source software ? If you intend to install a Linux BSD or SunOS, drivers for the videocard`s, LAN card`s, TV Tuners, digital camera`s are very hard to find. On the driver CD suplied by the vendor you will find only drivers for Windows.

      Depends who you buy from and if they want to increase sales. In many cases, if they don't have drivers on the CD-ROM, they're sometimes downloadable from the manufacturer's web site. If

  • Intel denies help with firmware, yet they donate coders to the Linux kernel (maybe *bsd's too, haven't checked out)

    I guess it's safer for them to donate developers than to give away what i guess they think they have ("trade secrets")

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Intel (Score:5, Interesting)

        by 4b696e67 ( 670803 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @10:33PM (#12602727)

        I don't know how true this is, but there is another reason that vendors may not release hardware info.

        I have heard that a lot of hardware is pretty bad and is mostly fixed with software hacks in the driver. Companies may be not want people to know how broken some of their products are.

        • Re:Intel (Score:5, Informative)

          by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@yahoGINSBERGo.com minus poet> on Sunday May 22, 2005 @12:05AM (#12603038) Homepage Journal
          Hmmm. Well, certainly there have been Intel devices withdrawn because of bugs (the original Pentium FPU bug springs to mind, but there have been others). Nor is Intel the only one - Transmeta's original batch of Crusoe processors were also pulled, due to bugs.


          So, yes, faulty designs do exist, and one of the best-known for it is also one of the best-known for not releasing hardware specs, which does tend to make for some interesting implications.


          Of course, even when documents ARE released, there is often a lot that is UNdocumented. The 486 had an interesting "load/save all registers" instruction, which basically allowed you to preserve or restore a complete CPU state. The hardware industry is littered with all sorts of other obscure undocumented syscalls, which is one reason why Open Source drivers for 3D graphics cards generally underperform - not because they are no good, but because the proprietary drivers include undocumented calls which improve performance.


          This goes along with why manufacturers are dead-set against reverse-engineering. Not because they fear someone learning some "industrial secret" that really IS something the manufacturer shouldn't divulge, but because they fear people discovering device commands that they currently sell to the highest bidder.

        • I have heard that a lot of hardware is pretty bad and is mostly fixed with software hacks in the driver. Companies may be not want people to know how broken some of their products are.

          I suspect something more cynical. The best explanation I have heard was that Microsoft will not include open source drivers thus not to get excluded in Microsoft OS chip set support the HAL remains closed source.

          I have also heard that some chips allow you to increase power to levels above FCC approval but this sounds wea

          • The whole point of the HAL (e.g. as needed for Atheros prior to Reyk's great work, and different to the BIOS needed on cards including CPUs e.g. ipi, ipw, Prism54) is that a HAL runs on the *host processor*, as part of the kernel, not on the device, and it's a lot more difficult to audit...

            The BIOS-redistribution-restrictions are pretty stupid, though not always unexpected: for example, if you try to use an Intel Ethernet card under Windows, drivers are often not included in the OS, so Intel get to make yo
    • I wish HW manufacturers would just release the specs, because it's usually possible to hack it anyway, and closed firmware doesn't give them an edge in the marketplace, for the reason I state in the topic. I think one obstacle in their minds is that if the HW dies while using untested (by them) firmware/drivers, they might be liable. Simple enough--just state in the warranty that it only applies to officially released firmware/drivers. Maybe then we can all get on with our lives instead of living in para

    • Re:Intel (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LurkerXXX ( 667952 )
      So exactly how would they potentially lose their "trade secrets" by letting OpenBSD, etc, redistribute the binary firmware images from their website?

      IMO they are simply doing Linux work as a lever against MS. If the Linux folks are content with the status of the drivers as is, there is no need to change things. OpenBSD folks care more about openness and good licensing then Linux folks.

  • Packages BAD (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Saturday May 21, 2005 @09:08PM (#12602339) Homepage
    All the packages in OpenBSD 3.7 packages directory are bad. They all expect libraries of previous releases, makes me think they were simply copied from 3.6, and older in a few cases. I had to make links to libc.so.39 as libc.so.38, libc.so.37 and libc.so.36 to make various apps work, same for ssl, crypt, libstdc++ and a bunch of other libs.

    At least the core OpenBSD 3.7 is complete and I imagine the packages will be brought up to date in time. Till then, compile your own or use ports.
    • gee thats lame... the whole point of buying the CD's is to get the compiled packages... that and to know I'm supporting the 'cause'... OTOH dont get me started about cheap fucks that wont even kick in $5 USD, but are pouncing on the ftp servers now.....
    • I've noticed no problem with package install, but have noticed that the ports arent working

      • This is a follow up on my previous post.

        I see something has happened to package managment. I quote the relevant

        ORN: What new features do package tools support?

        Marc Espie: A lot!

        The most visible new feature is probably the progress meter. If you add/remove packages, you will now get instant feedback that something is going on. A related features is that the message system has been completely redesigned to be more useful: it's much harder to miss things now.

        In general, the system is more robust, handles

    • Re:Packages BAD (Score:2, Informative)

      by IBeatUpNerds ( 827376 )
      Would you care to share which packages are broken?

      I've install 60+ packages with no problem whatsoever.
    • Are you sure it's not just your mirror?
  • A number of OpenBSD developers will be speaking at the CUUG [cuug.ab.ca] meeting on tuesday the 24th. It's extremely interesting to see them discuss the stuff they do, and it's a good opportunity to ask questions.

  • Sigh (Score:5, Informative)

    by rsax ( 603351 ) on Sunday May 22, 2005 @12:56AM (#12603191)
    ORN: A lot of companies have been using OpenSSH in their products (Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Apple, GNU/Linux vendors, etc.). Did they give anything back, like donations or hardware?

    Henning Brauer: Nobody ever gave us anything back. A plethora of vendors ship OpenSSH--commercial Unix vendors (basically all of them), all of the Linux distributors, and lots of hardware vendors (like HP in their switches)--but none of them seem to care; none of them ever gave us anything back. All of them should very well know that quality software doesn't "just happen," but needs some funding. Yet, they don't help at all.

    That just blows. A while back the OpenBSD team had to raise funds to acquire Dell hardware so that their CVS server could scale up. The CVS server that holds repositories for all Open* projects. You would think that one of these companies would have just donated the hardware. But nope.

    • Re:Sigh (Score:4, Interesting)

      by chrysalis ( 50680 ) on Sunday May 22, 2005 @06:50AM (#12604086) Homepage
      I can't agree more with you. What would it cost to Dell to supply hardware for the OpenBSD CVS server? Nothing.

      A few month ago, I was looking for Opteron-based server racks. I saw on the Transtec [transtec.de] home page a press release like "Transtec gave hardware to KDE developpers".
      I thought "hey, these guys are cool". And because of that, the company I'm working for ordered an Opteron server (2500 L) at Transtec. And since the server was performing well, we ordered for $ 300,000 of similar servers afterwards.

      Maybe we would have bought the server at Transtec's without this little press release, who knows. But maybe not. It was the little thing that made me immediately think that Transtec was a nice company.

      So the KDE fundation gets hardware, the vendor gets free ad and end users think the vendor is nice. Everyone wins.

      Another thing is that if vendors help free operating systems by giving hardware, these operating systems will probably be fully compatible with that hardware. Which means that end-users will buy the hardware because they know that OpenBSD/Linux/DragonFlyBSD/etc. will probably work on it. And it does because the vendor helped these projects at the first place, and for these vendors, giving a few servers is cheap. It can only be a win for them.

      • Indeed, this can form the seed for a bit of viral advertising. [Thank you for your contribution ;-).] One of the things I look for in a company are any contributions to communities, be if in the form of donations to non-profits, churches (even though I'm not a Christian), F/OSS, and the like. It doesn't cost the firms much, if anything at all if they have a few excess boxes at inventory time, and the return can be many times the expense, especially if they write it off their taxes as well.

        Simple, good

      • And because of that, the company I'm working for ordered an Opteron server (2500 L) at Transtec. And since the server was performing well, we ordered for $ 300,000 of similar servers afterwards.
        Did you tell Transtec about it?

        It's important to keep vendors motivated into donating stuff...
    • Personally, I think it's outrageous that a lot of people use free software, but don't donate anything...If everyone who downloaded a free software distro would just chip in $10.00 monthly, for fuck's sake! This is less than what people spend on movies...And why not $50.00 or $100.00, if you are one of those lucky few who live in the USA or Europe?
    • You would think that one of these companies would have just donated the hardware. But nope.

      Yes, I was pretty shocked at that.

      With the incredible resources at these companies disposal, I would have thought that a donation costs so little to them, that the good press would be more than worth it.

  • "Realtek 'GOOD,'Intel 'BAD.'" (Score:3, Funny)

    by drsmithy ( 35869 ) <drsmithy@nOSPAm.gmail.com> on Sunday May 22, 2005 @01:02AM (#12603220)
    Not often you see that combination of words when referring to network cards...
    • Indeed, for ethernet adapters, Realtek sucks and Intel e1000 are way better (although Syskonnect cards are not only even better, they are also cheaper).

      But Realtek Wi-Fi adapters work well. I have a cheap one, but I never had any issue with it. On the other hand, my previous Netgear MA301/311 pair (Prism 2.5) was unreliable although it was only 11 Mb/s.
  • Does the help from Realtek mean that open source operating systems (i.e. Linux/BSD/ReactOS etc) will be able to better support the RTL8180 WiFi chipset? (if so, thats GREAT because I own a RTL8180 board :)
  • Here's a quote:
    "And to the Linux "vendors" that regardlessly ship non-free firmware images with their OSes, I'd say that they are playing against their camp. Why would vendors ever change their policies if such things are accepted by the open source community?"

  • ORN: A lot of companies have been using OpenSSH in their products (Sun Microsystems, Cisco, Apple, GNU/Linux vendors, etc.). Did they give anything back, like donations or hardware?

    Henning Brauer: Nobody ever gave us anything back. A plethora of vendors ship OpenSSH--commercial Unix vendors (basically all of them), all of the Linux distributors, and lots of hardware vendors (like HP in their switches)--but none of them seem to care; none of them ever gave us anything back. All of them should very well kn
  • When will OpenBSD finally boot above cylinder 1024 or whatever? I am very serious about this because I love OpenBSD and would like to see it on more desktops. It has progressed much in the last 10 years.

    Do we have to wait for version 5.0 before Theo "gets it?"

    Rob

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