Airport Extreme-compatible card that supports Debian Linux?
A fair mount of readers of lists seems to be frustated - like me - about
the lack of Linux-support of the Airport Extreme-card (with the
Broadcom-chipset as found (as an option) in the Powerbook G4 12"and 17"
models).
Last week I had a phone call with the European Business Developement
Manager of Broadcom: they only have Linux-drivers for using their chipset
as an acess point and they only provide them to OEMs. They have no plans
for writing Linux-drivers for this chipset as a client (too small a market,
the Dells and HPs dont't ask for it - as he said) ) and they don't provide
support to the open source community to able them to write the drivers
themselves (they are afraid of their intellectual properties).
So, their seems to be 3 options right now:
1. avoiding these models
2. reverse engineering the Windows drivers
3. alternative WiFi-card for these laptops.
Option 1. is not reasonable for me: I just spent my last money on my new
Powerbook G4 12".
Option 2. is difficult, but might be doable.
Option 3. sounds interesting.
My questions are:
1. Does anyone know of an initiative by open source programmers to write
Linux-drivers for the Airport Extreme-card (by reverse engineering the
Windows-drivers of using the Linux-drivers provided by Broadcom)?
2. Is there an Airport Extreme-compataible card on the market (yet) with a
Linux driver? I might have some money left for such a card ;-).
Wout Tankink
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