From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Aug 17 18:48:23 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2D3145FC for ; Sun, 17 Aug 2014 18:48:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from cyrus.watson.org (cyrus.watson.org [198.74.231.69]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1D6E215E for ; Sun, 17 Aug 2014 18:48:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [198.74.231.63]) by cyrus.watson.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 75E6F46B09 for ; Sun, 17 Aug 2014 14:48:22 -0400 (EDT) Received: from fledge.watson.org (doug@localhost.watson.org [127.0.0.1]) by fledge.watson.org (8.14.8/8.14.8) with ESMTP id s7HImMO9070000 for ; Sun, 17 Aug 2014 14:48:22 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from doug@fledge.watson.org) Received: from localhost (doug@localhost) by fledge.watson.org (8.14.8/8.14.8/Submit) with ESMTP id s7HImL4v069996 for ; Sun, 17 Aug 2014 14:48:22 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from doug@fledge.watson.org) Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 14:48:21 -0400 (EDT) From: doug Reply-To: doug@safeport.com To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: how to encourage a wireless driver to exist? In-Reply-To: <003e01cfb9db$8c11b1e0$a43515a0$@dcollins.info> Message-ID: References: <003e01cfb9db$8c11b1e0$a43515a0$@dcollins.info> User-Agent: Alpine 2.11 (BSF 23 2013-08-11) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.4.3 (fledge.watson.org [127.0.0.1]); Sun, 17 Aug 2014 14:48:22 -0400 (EDT) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 18:48:23 -0000 On Sun, 17 Aug 2014, dbc wrote: > Hello, > > I have a new laptop which I'm well sick of having to run linux on. Is there > a way to encourage someone to write a driver for intel 7260 wifi card? > > I am a C programmer, and I would be willing to volunteer time, but I don't > know how useful I will be with neither driver writing nor wifi protocol nor > FreeBSD development process experience. Still, if anyone would point me in > the right direction I would happily give it a shot. Where can this stuff be > learnt? I also see that linux drivers exist, but I'm not sure about legal > problems when copying from those. > > Or, while I probably couldn't afford to fund it entirely myself, is there a > way I could chip into a pot to help fund someone with more experience to at > least make a start on it? > I too am in this boat, except for having any C skills :) My last two laptops have had no wireless support or in the case of my Dell also no support past the Vesa driver for the video card. I would also be willing to contribute funding for some relief to the wireless issue. I think probably the BSD Foundation would be the best vehicle. It seems to me however that one driver at a time is not a very general solution. I have tried the windows wrapper with zero success. First perhaps a discussion to determine if there is enough interest (i.e., money). I personally suspect our boat is a row boat). Then proceed on how a more general solution might be done. My solution to the wireless problem has been an Apple Airport Extreme and a cable. An iphone also works as an access point (but not for too long). I still think a path to growing new committers is to make it as easy as possible to use FreeBSD as a workstation. In my case, I was an IBM internals developer and would have never started thinking in Unix without the experience of making Xfree86 and then Xorg work (it took me long enough as it was). I do not want to use the desktop FreeBSDs because my path for going to the next major version is desktop --> internal systems --> production systems. If there are not enough people that either want to work like I do or think my general argument has merit, the only way to have a fully functional FreeBSD desktop is buy hardware [very] carefully. And we then must look to the FreeBSD desktops to 'recruit' the next generation of developers.