[Prism54-users] Re: SMC2835w v3 installation Problem

[Maximilian Engelhardt]

On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 07:41 +0200, Sven Köhler wrote:
> >
> >
> > Conexant has not stepped in to help our team advance a SoftMAC driver
> > and I doubt they will. Jean has been working on this (USB first). He's
> > your saviour.
> 
> This was told me already in another thread. I still don't understand why
> Conexant doesn't support the prims54-project. This would have been a
> good chance to get Linux support. As far as i can see, the old
> prism-chipsets had good support compared to other chipsets.

No body knows, the only fact we have is that they don't give any support
for Linux or general open source drivers.
Another thing is if you want to run some binary driver the company gave
you and you have no idea what it will do on you system and you can't do
anything if it's not working.

I also don't understand why companies don't support other OSs than
windows and perhaps MAC. They would only have to give the specs to
someone that's willing to develop a driver and nothing more. Of course
everything more is welcome, but not necessarily needed. It yous seems
like for some reason (competition?) they don't want other drivers than
their own.
> 
> What about a firmware? Not only a SoftMAC driver is necessary, but also
> a working firmware. What about that? Will Conexant provide a firmware?
> 
> I guess not, so has Conexant assured the prism54-project, not to sue
> anybody for ditributing firmware, how ever it was obtained?

AFAIK Conexant didn't give any license for distribution, but also didn't
do anything against people distributing it. Some people have put
firmwares online on their private webspace. There's also a tool for
extracting the firmware from the Windows driver. (I don't remember where
I got it from, but I can put it online if somebody wants it).

So you can always download the windows driver from you card vendors page
and extract the firmware from it.
> 
> Is there a FAQ on this topic anywhere?

I don't know exactly, but there should be some stuff in the ML archive
or perhaps in the wiki (if there's nothing in the wiki we also can add
something :)
If you're a bit lucky and are prepared to wait long time (some hours)
you could perhaps also get some information on IRC.
> 
> I'm so fed up with companies refusing to support Linux.

Sadly, that's still a problem today. There's some hardware that's
supported very well, but in general you should first double check if
it's supported or not before buying.

Maxi

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