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Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

arstechnica.com

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Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#21

Post by freedomben »

dang wrote: post #16
neogodless wrote: post #8

See also: https://lwn.net/Articles/979419/ https://www.phoronix.com/news/Larry-Finger-Linux-Wireless https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/larry-finger-linux-w...

Thanks - I've changed the URL to the last one of those (from https://www.developer-tech.com/news/2024/jun/24/linux-commun... ) because it seems to have the most background.

I know it violates the general guidelines to change the headline, but the new title doesn't make clear that he has passed away. I imagine there are a lot of people who might overlook it without that key part in the headline.

Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#22

Post by dang »

freedomben wrote: post #21
dang wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - I've changed the URL to the last one of those (from https://www.developer-tech.com/news/2024/jun/24/linux-commun... ) because it seems to have the most background.

I know it violates the general guidelines to change the headline, but the new title doesn't make clear that he has passed away. I imagine there are a lot of people who might overlook it without that key part in the headline.

Ok, I've grafted on a piece of the subtitle that makes it clearer.

Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#23

Post by dfox »

freedomben wrote: post #20
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #18

[flagged]

Wrong and terrible timing. There's a hell of a lot more to "Linux WiFi" than just the driver code that Larry maintained. I definitely wouldn't rule out hardware issues. I've seen race conditions in driver code before, but it's quite rare and Larry was really good at identifying and elimianting those. If your laptop is workable, pop the cover and make sure the wifi card connection is fully seated. Also check the dmesg…

Probably the most common reason for the integrated wifi card becoming “non-deterministically non-recognized” is that the OEM fucked up the rf-kill in that there are slight differences between what the EC firmware and ACPI expect and how the hardware is implemented (missing pull-ups, EMI induced into high-impedance logic trace somewhere…).

Anecdotally, on any laptop that I have seen with these kinds of issues (basically every new Intel laptop I bought between 2017 and 2020, which includes lot of weird no-name tablet-in-laptop-formfactor crap, but also ThinkPad X270), it progresses such that the WLAN becomes unusable in Windows but you would hardly even notice in Linux, where it just works.

[edit: obviously comparing Windows to Windows is nonsense, it works in _Linux_]

Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#24

Post by maCDzP »

freedomben wrote: post #11

Wow, this is sad news indeed for the world at large, but also me personally. I'm suddenly in deep regret for having procrastinated reaching out the thank him. He doesn't know this, but he was somewhat of a mentor for me. In the early 00s I bought a laptop that had an RTL 8188 CE card in it that ran awful under Linux. I forked his driver and made a number of changes to it and eventually got my wifi working really well…

This is what makes me come to HN every single day.

Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#26

Post by freedomben »

dang wrote: post #22
freedomben wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it violates the general guidelines to change the headline, but the new title doesn't make clear that he has passed away. I imagine there are a lot of people who might overlook it without that key part in the headline.

Ok, I've grafted on a piece of the subtitle that makes it clearer.

awesome, looks great, thanks so much!

Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#27

Post by foobarian »

nashashmi wrote: post #7

I always think of him every week or so for his support of a belkin wireless card FG… I had as a broke college student in 2005 trying to get linux working on my machine. His driver worked better than the belkin supported windows driver. What do I think about? Why the hell did he volunteer his post work hours trying to do this menial job hardware thing. Did he not have a family or something? He did. And today they lost…

> What do I think about? Why the hell did he volunteer his post work hours trying to do this menial job hardware thing. Did he not have a family or something?

I wondered the same, imagining some 40-something FTE frustrated with bureaucratic work projects and with a couple young kids. Guess what, this guy passed at 84! Which means the driver work happened in his 60+ years. I will be lucky if I can remember my name at that age. :-)

Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#28

Post by freedomben »

freedomben wrote: post #11

Wow, this is sad news indeed for the world at large, but also me personally. I'm suddenly in deep regret for having procrastinated reaching out the thank him. He doesn't know this, but he was somewhat of a mentor for me. In the early 00s I bought a laptop that had an RTL 8188 CE card in it that ran awful under Linux. I forked his driver and made a number of changes to it and eventually got my wifi working really well…

Found a small typo, but it's too late to edit the original. I meant early 2010s (not early 00s)

Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#29

Post by exe34 »

freedomben wrote: post #11

Wow, this is sad news indeed for the world at large, but also me personally. I'm suddenly in deep regret for having procrastinated reaching out the thank him. He doesn't know this, but he was somewhat of a mentor for me. In the early 00s I bought a laptop that had an RTL 8188 CE card in it that ran awful under Linux. I forked his driver and made a number of changes to it and eventually got my wifi working really well…

> Even just keeping the driver compilable with each kernel release often took some non-trivial refactoring,

I realise that the kernel contributors themselves are mostly volunteers and as such can just do what they want, and writers of non-upstreamed drivers will need to get used to chasing trunk, but to me this sort of thing seems like a waste of human talent. once something works, it should never not work again. it seems to me that despite all the layers of cruft that we've accumulated over the decades haven't really helped much with this, in fact they probably mean more work just to stay still.

Re: Remembering Larry Finger, who made Linux wireless work

#30

Post by freedomben »

exe34 wrote: post #29
freedomben wrote: post #11

Wow, this is sad news indeed for the world at large, but also me personally. I'm suddenly in deep regret for having procrastinated reaching out the thank him. He doesn't know this, but he was somewhat of a mentor for me. In the early 00s I bought a laptop that had an RTL 8188 CE card in it that ran awful under Linux. I forked his driver and made a number of changes to it and eventually got my wifi working really well…

> Even just keeping the driver compilable with each kernel release often took some non-trivial refactoring, I realise that the kernel contributors themselves are mostly volunteers and as such can just do what they want, and writers of non-upstreamed drivers will need to get used to chasing trunk, but to me this sort of thing seems like a waste of human talent. once something works, it should never not work again. it…

I've struggled philosophically with that very question as well (especially having to update my own WORKING code just to conform to API changes), and I'm very torn on it. I just don't think there's a good point to pick at which to "freeze" the API and say no more changes are allowed. It would greatly hamper innovation and IMHO ultimately lead the Linux kernel having major forks or being displaced by something more adaptable. Despite the pain points, I think it's an overall good, though that doesn't stop the stinging of having to keep up. It really forces you to either be in or out. It can be very difficult to be a part time contributor.
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