On 01/03/12 22:10, Jerry wrote:
On Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:44:30 +1000
Da Rock articulated:
On 01/03/12 11:15, Jeffrey McFadden wrote:
I have a Toshiba Satellite U505-S2950 laptop with a Realtek
RTL8191SEvB wireless card built in. FreeBSD doesn't recognize this
card and can't use it, but Ubuntu does.
Would it be possible to go glom a Linux driver off the web
someplace and install it in my FreeBSD and get the wireless to
work? I'm using a USB Belkin in it now, but that's an unhandy
thing sticking out like it does.
Unfortunately the API's are completely different. Adrian Chadd does a
lot of work on Wifi in FreeBSD, but I'm not sure if its on the todo
list or not. Try a search on google...
This is what drives me to pull my hair out. I have stated several times
that all the *nix/*BSD consortium needs to do to become truly
competitive in the market is to devise a uniform API that works the same
on FreeBSD as on Ubuntu and every other non-windows based system. The
concept is so simple that it amazes me that it was not implemented
eons ago.
The problem is that the non-windows operating system authors all behave
live little children. None of them can simply get along. The all have
to insist that "they" have the best and everyone else is wrong. They
swing between Narcissism and Paranoia on any given day. You would have
an easier time getting a Jew and a Muslim to sit down at a table and
enjoy a ham dinner than you have of getting the powers that be in the
non-windows community to agree to anything, other than their hatred of
Microsoft of course.
I have spoken with representatives of companies, the last one being
Brother International, who plain out stated that they only support
Microsoft (naturally - they offer the easiest and best documented
system for driver installation) and a vanilla Linux solution. They
openly stated that there is no way that they would even attempt to
write software for a market as fractured as the *nix/*BSD community and
then be straddled with the problem of supporting such software. Hell,
every time someone in the BSD community dotted an "i" in the kernel
source code the poor driver authors would have to rewrite their device
code. Certainly a task I would not want to be assigned.
Ubuntu is years ahead of FreeBSD in creating a useful and fully
functional desktop, I read where they were working on making it
possible to use a driver disk intended for Microsoft's Windows OS
usable in Ubuntu. They were working on a method of simply extracting
the code needed directly from a CD and using it directly on Ubuntu. Now
that is what I call true "forward" thinking.
The authors of FreeBSD, and to a lesser extend Linux remind me of group
of of passengers left floating in the ocean after their ship sank. The
best case scenario at that point would be to be rescued by another
passing ship. However, while waiting for that to occur it would seem
logical to grab onto any object that floated by and thereby allow the
stranded individual a better chance at survival. If these were Ubuntu
survivors there would be no question as to what they would choose to
do, as well as some of the more enlighten *nix" users. However, the
*BSD users, especially the FreeBSD ones would rather drown than accept
a solution that was not counter to what everyone else was trying to
accomplish.
I have, mistakenly I admit, stated that there are no drivers for lots
of devices currently available on the market, especially the higher end
ones. That statement is essentially incorrect. There are drivers for
these devices, and other OSs are taking advantage of them. FreeBSD,
in its unending war against simplicity and continued insistence
on reinventing the wheel, refuses to avail itself of them.
You can lead a horse to water; however, you cannot stop it from running
head long into the desert and dying of thirst. Stupidity IS its own
punishment.
It took the Catholic church until 1992 to admit that Galileo Galilei
was correct and the earth does rotate around the sun. So there is hope.
Perhaps someday FreeBSD will become "enlightened" also.
Jerry, there are so many things that are so wrong and so un-pc in this
statement that it is more than ridiculous. But we will ignore the
political/religious sentiments and try to stick to the technical.
Winblows, Mac, Linux, BSD, others APIs are like cheese and chalk
(although Mac is a closer relative than any other). By your logic we
should be getting Winblows drivers to work on BSD.
And thats not even touching the licensing issues. Or the simple design
policies (such as userspace or kernel modules) that differ from platform
to platform.
Some ray of hope allowed some linux drivers to reach the horizon, but so
far only usb is remotely possible.
Perhaps you might become enlightened enough to do the research (like I
did) on the background and core details of what is involved before you
start a rant such as this. This has been brought to your attention
before, only recently in fact.
Start with an introduction to OS design textbook and you may just barely
touch the tip of the iceberg...
And if you see us as people floating in the ocean after a ship sank, why
are you still here then?
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