gmane.linux.debian.devel.announce

Ben Armstrong | 13 Oct 19:31

Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, autumn 2008

Also posted as http://syn.theti.ca/2008/10/13/

   Some brief highlights of the last three months of Debian Eee PC
   development.

Thermal and ACPI breakage resolved in 2.6.26-7

   We're pleased to see that in the upload to Sid of
   linux-image-2.6.26-1-686 version 2.6.26-7, the pair of [1]2.6.26 bugs
   we've been tracking that have made it difficult for Eee users to
   upgrade their systems have been resolved. Since then 2.6.26-8 has
   been uploaded and is expected to enter Lenny this week due to a
   freeze exception. Once the new kernel has migrated we will move
   quickly to build and release a new installer that includes it.

Ath5k wifi works on Eee PC in Linux 2.6.27

   Jean-Christophe reports that [2]ath5k works in Linux 2.6.27 on
   the Eee PC 701, and just needs a [3]small patch to work with our
   eeepc-acpi-scripts package. This is good news for those of us with
   models 701, 900, 900A and 1000HD who have been wanting to get off of
   the non-free Madwifi drivers and onto DFSG free drivers.

New Eee PC model 701SD wifi support in the works

   Users of the new Eee PC Model [4]701SD have just started showing up
   looking for support in mainstream Linux distros. Martin Filtenborg
   confirmed using our [5]Eee PC Live image with the GPL'd rtl8187se
   driver from Realtek to demonstrate that we can at least use it to
   connect to an unencrypted AP, get an IP address and ping other hosts.

(Continue reading)

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Matteo Croce | 14 Oct 02:00

Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, autumn 2008

On Monday 13 October 2008 19:35:16 Ben Armstrong wrote:
> Ath5k wifi works on Eee PC in Linux 2.6.27
>
>    Jean-Christophe reports that [2]ath5k works in Linux 2.6.27 on
>    the Eee PC 701, and just needs a [3]small patch to work with our
>    eeepc-acpi-scripts package. This is good news for those of us with
>    models 701, 900, 900A and 1000HD who have been wanting to get off of
>    the non-free Madwifi drivers and onto DFSG free drivers.
>

ath5k? aren't 901 and 1000HD 802.11n devices, so they are supported
by the newer ath9k driver?

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Ben Armstrong | 14 Oct 02:35

Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, autumn 2008

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:00:29 +0200
Matteo Croce <technoboy85@...> wrote:
> On Monday 13 October 2008 19:35:16 Ben Armstrong wrote:
> > Ath5k wifi works on Eee PC in Linux 2.6.27
> >
> >    Jean-Christophe reports that [2]ath5k works in Linux 2.6.27 on
> >    the Eee PC 701, and just needs a [3]small patch to work with our
> >    eeepc-acpi-scripts package. This is good news for those of us with
> >    models 701, 900, 900A and 1000HD who have been wanting to get off of
> >    the non-free Madwifi drivers and onto DFSG free drivers.
> >
> 
> ath5k? aren't 901 and 1000HD 802.11n devices, so they are supported
> by the newer ath9k driver?

I think you're thinking of 1000H which is an N device.  1000HD is a
different model altogether b/g like the 701 and 900.  I know it's
confusing with Asus coming out with all of these new models.  Please
consult the table we drew up in our wiki summarizing the differences
between models we support or plan to support:

http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/Models

Besides, no Eee model that I know of uses an Atheros N chipset, so ath9k
will not work for them.  Models 901, 1000 and 1000H use Ralink rt2860,
as indicated in the table.  While the driver is GPL'd, unfortunately it
embeds a non-free firmware.  There is no 100% open source solution for
these devices yet.  I believe there is work in progress in
compat-wireless, but nothing that works yet.

(Continue reading)

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Luca Niccoli | 14 Oct 12:19

Re: Bits from the Debian Eee PC team, autumn 2008

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 2:35 AM, Ben Armstrong
<synrg@...> wrote:

> Besides, no Eee model that I know of uses an Atheros N chipset, so ath9k
> will not work for them.  Models 901, 1000 and 1000H use Ralink rt2860,
> as indicated in the table.  While the driver is GPL'd, unfortunately it
> embeds a non-free firmware.  There is no 100% open source solution for
> these devices yet.  I believe there is work in progress in
> compat-wireless, but nothing that works yet.

Does it use a binary firmware (running on the device memory and
controller) or a binary blob running on the host CPU?
In the former case, I'm afraid we'll have to live with that (as we do
with a lot of other drivers, most of which are included in the
kernel).
Not that I live this as a terrible ethical problem: by law wireless
hardware producers have to enforce FCC regulations beyond the
possibility of intervention by the user; they do this via a binary
firmware loaded at runtime, would have it been so different if they
were hardcoding the regulations in the hardware or they used a
persistent firmware (like most of us have in their CD-writer)?

Luca