RE: LInksys WMP11 (BCM4301 chip)

RE: LInksys WMP11 (BCM4301 chip)

[Andrew Miklas]

Hi,

David Ford wrote:

> According to http://www.linuxworld.com/story/33804.htm, (Andrew Miklas),
> the BCM4301 is supported however I don't see any such critter in my
> source.

The link mentioned quotes me as saying that the BCM4300 series of wireless 
chips has excellent support on the MIPS architecture, which indeed it does. 
Unfortunately, what they don't mention is that the source for that driver was 
not, and has not been released by Linksys or Broadcom.  Also, the binary 
driver is only available in the firmware of networking products, like the 
WRT54G, using Broadcom wireless chips.

Hopefully, I'll have some more information to post here about that in the 
coming few days.


-- Andrew

Re: LInksys WMP11 (BCM4301 chip)

[David Ford]

I'm _eagerly_ awaiting more information :)

There's a project on sourceforge, alas it hasn't gone anywhere in the 
several months that it's been there.  I'm relying on my laptop to route 
for me because it has builtin wireless/lan on it and I really need 
network access on my desktop.  I now have two linksys wireless pieces 
of...stuff, and neither are supported or supported well.  I.e the WMP11 
and the WUSB11.

The WUSB11 is slowly moving along, but it's far behind 2.6.0.

I used to by Linksys net Netgear stuff because they were reliable and 
they sometimes stated "Linux" directly on the product box.  These days 
I'm starting to get jaded.  It seems that the 'buzzword hype' of putting 
"Linux" on the box has disappeared.  Pretty fscking annoying when the 
community that can best improve a driver and freely at that, is occluded.

Getting back to the subject.  I have both the WUSB11 and the WMP11 and 
I'm more than willing to provide data for testing.  Even if I gotta 
hardwire the things with baling wire and bubble gum, I gotta get one of 
them working.

David
p.s. To Erik: yes, I know the article was spun :(  I read Andrew's 
original post.  Unfortunately it was spun to say that BC made linux 
people happy.

Andrew Miklas wrote:

>The link mentioned quotes me as saying that the BCM4300 series of wireless 
>chips has excellent support on the MIPS architecture, which indeed it does. 
>Unfortunately, what they don't mention is that the source for that driver was 
>not, and has not been released by Linksys or Broadcom.  Also, the binary 
>driver is only available in the firmware of networking products, like the 
>WRT54G, using Broadcom wireless chips.
>
>Hopefully, I'll have some more information to post here about that in the 
>coming few days.
>  
>

LInksys WMP11 (BCM4301 chip)

[David Ford]

According to http://www.linuxworld.com/story/33804.htm, (Andrew Miklas), 
the BCM4301 is supported however I don't see any such critter in my source.

I find numerous mentions on the web about the v2.7 model of this bugger 
having switched to the BCM chip instead of the Prism chip.

Is there really any [kernel 2.6] support for this thing somewhere or do 
I have to email LinkSys a nastygram? :)

David

Re: LInksys WMP11 (BCM4301 chip)

[Erik Andersen]

On Sat Sep 27, 2003 at 06:54:13PM -0400, David Ford wrote:
> According to http://www.linuxworld.com/story/33804.htm, (Andrew Miklas), 
> the BCM4301 is supported however I don't see any such critter in my source.

This is a _terribly_ misleading article.  There are only a few
little bits of truth in the article you have referenced, and even
that has been spun to exagerate the truth.

Broadcom has never released the source for the referenced chips
to the general public.  Those are closed source, binary-only,
mipsel drivers for kernel 2.4.5 that are embedded within the
device firmware. 

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
--This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--