While trying to verify if the new compaq is compatable with SUSE I came across a post about an HP user who had problems with his broadcom card. He installed an atheros card in the HP but laptop did not allow a different card to be installed. It looks like novell SUSE will work on the compaq only because novel and microsoft has the drivers for the broadcom cards. These drivers are not available to other linux users. This seams to me to be contrary to the linux philosophy and the compaq computer should be avoided.
& where did you get the idea the broadcom drivers are only for MS & novell ? i’m also running Debian & a few other *nixes using the broadcom drivers.
Andy
Edit: i use broadcom’s & the b43 drivers,just to experiment
I thought openSUSE, along with Debian, are actually probably more fanatical about open-sourceness than any other mainstream distros.
If you can find evidence of Novell playing funny with drivers [Hint: Key word ‘evidence’. It won’t be on boycottnovell.com], a significant proportion of SUSE users will jump ship. Otherwise, it’s more grist for the rumour mill…
Ooookaaay, someone changed their wireless card and that means that Novell is the same as Microsoft?
That’s nothing - I changed my socks yesterday and fires broke out in France and Greece!
By this guy’s logic that must mean that JFK really was assassinated by space aliens, and the world really IS flat!
I always knew it, but this proves it :sarcastic:.
Oh, and by the way, the Broadcom firmware is available here - http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 …just don’t tell Microsoft, the CIA, or Bob Geldoff, or we’ll all be in BIG trouble!
Hehehe. So that’s what they mean by “interoperability” i.e. Novell and Microsoft are interchangeable. Therefore your socks must have interoperability with France and Greece. That means your socks will have been boycotted and featured in a special website. :\ This new approach to thinking does explain many things…
This thread delivers on levels never before seen in these forums!
Saturday night special, so don’t expect this level of support every day.
And if you ask really nicely, I’ll explain in ten easy to learn steps how to eat your own head and then go on to be a “Big Brother” star 
To be honest I can understand the trust of the original argument. If drivers are developed for Linux, then they should be available for all Linux users and not just the Dell/HP/Novell users. For example, winmodem drivers. In the end keeping these drivers back is self defeating.
That’s exactly what made absolutely no sense whatsoever, the drivers ARE available for each and every version of Linux on the planet!
The b43 driver is part of the kernel (from 2.6.27 onward I believe) , and so is provided with the kernel source.
The only part missing is the firmware, which can be downloaded and installed, although this is considered illegal in some countries.
The firmware is not included in the Linux kernel because Broadcom refuse to release it as GPL, and if a Linux distribution (or any other OS for that matter) wants to pay money to Broadcom in order to include their firmware in their OS, it is their business and right to do so.
openSUSE will not provide Broadcom firmware illegally, but it does provide a method for retrieving the said firmware. It isn’t advertised, but it is there.
The OP obviously didn’t understand this, and quite frankly his post sounded incredibly “off the wall”, hence my poking of fun at it.
That’s nothing - I changed my socks yesterday and fires broke out in France and Greece!
@Growbag: I KNEW it was YOU! rotfl!
They reported strong cheesy smell before the fire broke out. Tssss, I could have understood earlier.
Yeah, sorry about that. Next time I’ll issue a world-wide warning! Or better still vow to never again change my socks rotfl!
It’s all to do with Synchronicity - Synchronicity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I proved this to myself at the last elections, every time I vote for a party they would lose, so this time I didn’t vote and my favourite party got in lol!.
I’m starting to get the hang of this new way of thinking and linking random events ;).
I just have to figure out how to make ten billion Euros appear in my bank account, I think it might be related to the way I flush the toilet each morning - I’ll keep you posted ;).
There are a lot of other modem chip sets than just Broadcom. I was specifically thinking of the ThinkPad 56K Modem (MDC-1.5) when I wrote that.
Drivers are owned by the kernel regardless of distro. Problem is that stock compiled distro’s do not always have features included by default. There is nothing to say you can’t reconfigure and re-build a distro to use the drivers, it is open source. Proprietary hardware like Compaq (owned by HP), or Dell systems do not conform directly to standard PC hardware as a move to have a strong placeholder in the market place. This means that certain hardware configurations will have trouble regardless of the operating system in use. Do you really want to go with winmodem drivers. Using a good 60% of CPU cycles to negociate transmision that is best done by USART (Universal Serial Assyncronous Receiver Transmitter) that uses no CPU cycles?
Here is a link that states HP locks out unapproved wireless cards in the BIOS. 300 dollar (US) CQ60-419WM impressions - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion so I can’t even upgrade to a wireless N broadcom card even with novell or windows. Who’s bright idea was this?
winmodems are not true modems! They are software based modems which Microsoft obtained drivers for. Such winmodems are not and will never be supported by MAC, UNIX, or Linux. Firstly, because they are software driven instead of hardware/firmware driven, they take up almost all the PC compute cycles during packet exchanges and this is very bad for obtaining peek performance.
Novel/openSUSE only distributes drivers which GPL’d in the best nature of Linux. Non-Gpl’d drivers can not be considered mainstream for Linux which can only contain GPL’d stuff in main stream distribution.:\
Soooooo, can you list the drivers which you figure are being held back??
Sure here is one http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=3957678&prodNameId=3957679&swEnvOID=2094&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=ob-69903-1 I was hoping wireless N would come out with windows 7 rather than pre N this is new Compaq 515 Notebook PC - Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center but the linux option leads to a bios update this is not obvious to me to be a wireless driver. I think I will wait until the november sales to buy.
b43 - Linux Wireless shows the 4321 driver is not supported by Linux at this time.
14e4:4321
not supported
?
b43
This has nothing to do with BIOS updates for Linux anyway. This is simply that at this time, it’s not compatible with Linux.
Compaq claims the 515 the 516 and the 610 are novell suse compliant. There are japanese models loaded with red flag linux. I have no problem with this if the japanese company broadcom wants to allow the japanese to run red flag. So far as I can find no one has loaded these computers with any kind of english linux even novell suse. Only microsoft and novell has the drivers for the broadcom cards. This can’t be an accident there has to be some communication between HP and the quanta motherboard makers microsoft novell and broadcom.