71–80 of 92 posts
Besides Larry Finger, another Linux kernel developer passed away this week: https://lwn.net/Articles/979617/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is there some reason that the Linux kernel couldn't offer a stable API for device drivers? Politics. Offering a stable-ish internal API would instantly lead to hardware vendors shipping closed source drivers for Linux. Currently, you have to be the size of NVIDIA or AMD to be able to afford a closed source driver, it's simply a huge work to keep up with the constant improvements in the Linux kernel.
Not true, there are smaller companies providing closed source kernel modules as well. Check any Android image for a device with SD card slot in the era where open source exfat driver didn't exist, and you'll likely find one of the 2 proprietary exfat driver modules. Embedded/mobile projects don't tend to use bleeding-edge kernels and stuck on one version regardless of closed source modules anyway.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/the-e...
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…
It may be that in the hypothetical absence of a salary giving them an excuse, many of these individuals may also choose to volunteer, but it's wrong to call contributors "mostly volunteers" when that's their day job. Changesets from those known to be spending their own time on contributing are a relatively small fraction of the changes.
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…
What things did you do that weren't legal to make your WiFi work better?
These things are illegal for a reason.
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…
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…
What things did you do that weren't legal to make your WiFi work better?
> Broadcom provided no code for its gear > so Finger helped reverse-engineer the necessary specs by manually dumping and reading hardware registers I really wanted to leave this quote here for all to see. The badassery of this act should not be underestimated. I've done a little bit of work along those lines. Reverse engineering my laptop's features, writing my own free software to drive them from inside Linux, email…