From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261595AbTD2L0n (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:26:43 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261598AbTD2L0n (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:26:43 -0400 Received: from mail.gmx.net ([213.165.65.60]:54507 "HELO mail.gmx.net") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261595AbTD2L0m (ORCPT ); Tue, 29 Apr 2003 07:26:42 -0400 Message-ID: <3EAE644A.2000101@gmx.net> Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 13:38:50 +0200 From: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2) Gecko/20021126 X-Accept-Language: de, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "David S. Miller" CC: Martin List-Petersen , bas.mevissen@hetnet.nl, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Broadcom BCM4306/BCM2050 support References: <1051596982.3eae18b640303@roadrunner.hulpsystems.net> <1051614381.21135.5.camel@rth.ninka.net> In-Reply-To: <1051614381.21135.5.camel@rth.ninka.net> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.71.0.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org David S. Miller wrote: > On Mon, 2003-04-28 at 23:16, Martin List-Petersen wrote: > >>>I couldn't find any Linux support for these WLAN chips with >>>google or on this lists archives. So I would like to ask it here: >> >>It seems, that the specs haven't been released yet. There are quite a few Wlan >>cards out there based on the Broadcom chips (nearly all cards, that support >>802.11g), so it's quite a shame. (Actually this fits the the TrueMobile 1180, >>1300 and 1400, speaking of Dell wireless lan cards). > > ... > >>The same problem is with the Intel Prowireless 2100 (Centrino) WLan card. No >>Linux support available yet, which is another choice for the Dell notebooks at >>the moment. > > > Don't expect specs or opensource drivers for any of these pieces > of hardware until these vendors figure out a way to hide the frequency > programming interface. > > Ie. these cards can be programmed to transmit at any frequency, > and various government agencies don't like it when f.e. users can > transmit on military frequencies and stuff like that. Cool. > The only halfway plausible idea I've seen is to not document the > frequency programming registers, and users get a "region" key file that > has opaque register values to program into the appropriate registers. > The file is per-region (one for US, Germany, etc.)and the wireless > kernel driver reads in this file to do the frequency programming. > > So don't blame the vendors on this one, several of them would love > to publish drivers public for their cards, but simply cannot with > upsetting federal regulators. /me wants binary only driver for these cards to build opensource driver with ability to set "interesting" frequency range. Carl-Daniel -- http://www.hailfinger.org/