Idea
#1925: Develop means of using windows drivers for unsupported hardware
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-14
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Written by Cybercod the 29 Feb 08 at 23:10.
Category: System.
Related to:
Nothing/Others.
Status: New
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Description
Similar to the way that ndiswrapper interfaces with wireless cards by making a compatibility layer between linux and the windows drivers, work on a means to use the great mass of readily available windows drivers to interface with non-linux-compliant hardware.
And yeah, I know, obviously it wouldn't work the way things are now. But lots of stuff didn't work before, and some brilliant and diligent people went about making it work.
It would surely be easier than convincing every single manufacturer on the planet that they need to spend time and money developing drivers for an OS with currently such a small percentage of the global PC market.
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Comments
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Felix_the_Mac wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 23:20
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"It would surely be easier than convincing every single manufacturer on the planet that they need to spend time and money developing drivers for an OS with currently such a small percentage of the global PC market."
The problem is that this suggestion would cause LESS Linux drivers to be written since those companies who we are trying to convince would say "Why bother?".
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Greyor wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 00:11
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Yes, we should discourage stopgap solutions such as this. Developers should work with hardware manufacturers (and petition them, perhaps, too) to produce open-source and free drivers, rather than giving them more incentive to say "Why bother?" It's not going to be an overnight solution, but it's better than going against the F/OSS grain if we can help it.
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Cybercod wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 03:19
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Chicken / egg situation.
Can't get the market percentage without proper drivers.
Can't get the drivers without the market percentage.
Something has to give.
Or we could just sit on our hands and wait for greed-driven companies to suddenly decide to give something away for free.
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yztlyrn wrote on the 12 Mar 08 at 14:55
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It doesn't have to cost the companies anything if they'd just release their specs for us to use. I cannot understand their reluctance to comply with this request. We would do the development for them.
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Cybercod wrote on the 13 Mar 08 at 01:48
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Would releasing the specs increase their vulnerability to cheap knockoffs?
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Auzy wrote on the 13 Mar 08 at 05:36
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Yzthlyrn, even without, we can support them anyway. The issue is that we are not supporting hardware companies, and are in fact demoting buying the latest and greatest.
Because Ubuntu's kernel gets upgraded only every 6 months on the install DVD. So if you buy a new HDD controller, you cant install linux for 6 months. Because you cant even load a module into the install DVD.
This is the closest to a stable ABI/API patch we can get
Maybe if we stopped our lame "but we don't want driver CD's" attitude which at least 5 idiots here keep saying, they would bother. Because some people cannot get linux installed at all, if they cant use a driver CD for install. I cant even use ubuntu again until 8.04 gets released.
I vote +1 here, if the linux kernel developers don't want to support our hardware out of the box, we should resort to Microsoft. At least they aren't anal enough to require every device to be in the kernel just to install.
If you vote for this, you should also vote for:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3932/
And http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3868/ is a kind of native solution to the same problem
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madjr wrote on the 29 May 08 at 02:54
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i agree with Auzy
everyone who voted down this idea needs to get shoot in the head.
if it wasn't for ndiswrapper i would not have internet nor hundreds of thousands of linux users with broadcom chips (the most used worldwide).
all those users would would not had joined the linux community
maybe we should speak to the real developers http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net instead of the *** ***** who oppose things working.
when Linux gets enough marketshare, you'll get all the native drivers u can ask for, meanwhile that won't be possible unless we do something.
we need to get out of the Chicken / egg situation as mentioned above.
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steve196 wrote on the 29 May 08 at 16:28
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Clearly a +1 from me.
A wrapped Windows driver is inferior in performance and stability to a genuine Linux one, but if nothing better exists for the hardware you happen to have it is ok.
Most users do not want to research anything. They just want to go to the nearest shop and buy "a colour printer", maybe the cheapest one there. And they expect their system to work with that hardware, especially if there is another one, that does.
Companies that do not give out specs do so primarily out of fear of patent litigation. Much of the hardware (winmodems are a classic example) are incomplete, and what is missing in the chip is outsourced to the driver, that is why giving out the specs would expose core concepts of that hardware to anyone, who wants to try and find his own patents in there.
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HDave wrote on the 19 Jun 08 at 03:01
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+1 from me too. When Linux desktop distros have captured big-time market share, hardware vendors will be tripping over themselves to proclaim they have open source, bullet-proof, linux drivers...initially on the CD in the box, and soon with version x.y.z of the kernel.
Big-time market share isn't going to happen until it's a no brainer to get all this stuff working. I love my Ubuntu, but If it weren't for ndiswrapper, I couldn't use it. I am still unable to use my company's Xerox printers.
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Auzy wrote on the 19 Jun 08 at 03:05
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Its a pity this idea is at such a lowpoint. If it was given a second chance, we would probably see it shooting upwards.
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