[ILUG] Wireless Card - Any experiences?

[Murf]

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, Rick Moen wrote:

> Quoting Murf (xcraft at eircom.net):
>
> [ndiswrapper:]
>
> > It's basically a wrapper for the windows drivers, but I have to say it
> > was worth it as they run flawlessly. Downside is having to pay for a
> > license for something that, in a way, you've already paid for, but it
> > was the easiest thing to do in my case.
>
> Much, much bigger downsides:  You have code of unknown quality that
> cannot be maintained running in kernelspace.  This means that if you
> develop kernel-related problems, especially as the kernel's interface to
> drivers changes over time, your bugs may originate in the proprietary
> code but be difficult to isolate to that code and impossible to fix.
> And the drivers may well not be portable to newer hardware architecture,
> e.g., if you switch to some new and better CPU arch that differs to the
> degree that AMD64 does from i386.

Oh, yes, I'm aware of these downsides alright, lack of portability and no
BSD support is a big downer, but at the time, i was kinda stuck and in a
hurry to get things working.

Also, I couldn't afford to keep buying cards & testing them out. I was
also stung by the fact that everything online pointed to the SMC being
compat with the OSS prism drivers. Sneaky devils changed the card a couple
of weeks before I bought in. :(

Oh well, c'est la vie. Once bitten, twice shy etc etc.

regards,
Murf.......