Why Wireless and OpenSolaris?

By David Stewart (Intel) (138 posts) on September 11, 2008 at 3:03 pm

We have actually been putting considerable effort with the community to provide a suite of robust device drivers for Intel's wireless LAN products and the OpenSolaris operating system.

Why do it? Why put this kind of effort into something which is clearly a feature for mobile devices into Solaris and OpenSolaris, which seem more server oriented?

Above (embedded) is a brief 5-minute blip.tv video which shows why we're so keen on this topic. (As always, if you can watch through to the Intel "bong", I will get reasonable feed counts. Thanks!)
Original video source.

YouTube version, if you prefer

Categories: Uncategorized

Comments (14)

September 11, 2008 11:18 PM PDT


Mark Phalan		 Nice video!
September 11, 2008 11:33 PM PDT


EdwardOCallaghan		 +1 !!!
You guys are doing really well here !
Please don't forget your SATA controller drivers need a little work.
http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=2978

Thanks for your work and I hope Intel gets Solaris drivers on par with there windows ones in a fair time span (not a year latter).

Edward O'Callaghan.
September 12, 2008 12:57 AM PDT


UX-admin		 Excellent!

Is there a list, *other* than Sun's HCL, that lists all the intel-supported OpenSolaris drivers/ChipSets/Model names & numbers?

(I'm looking for a new laptop to run OpenSolaris on, and this would help buy an intel based one.)
September 12, 2008 6:08 AM PDT


xRaich[o]²x		 Very nice! Like UX-Admin I'm looking for a new laptop for OpenSolaris, it's really an amazing platform for development and with the good driver support i can use it as my regular desktop operating system. I'm still having a few problems with connecting to WPA Enterprise networks, but things are progressing very fast.

Thanks for supporting OpenSolaris

Regards,
Björn
September 12, 2008 7:01 AM PDT


Dave Stewart		 @UX-admin and @Bjorn, general guidelines here,

We try to give our best support for the Intel platforms like Centrino and vPro. A system with the Centrino or vPro brand will have a collection of parts which we're trying to focus our efforts on. (one exception to this I will mention in a moment)

Other members of the community might comment on specific manufacturers and laptops... I was about to do so, but I generally think its a Bad Idea for someone from Intel to pimp one particular manufacturer's system.

By the way, I'm finding that most desktop/laptop system manufacturers don't use Intel's wired ethernet components, opting for another brand that isn't supported by us. There is an important reason for it, but you can almost guarantee that you will need to load a separate wired ethernet driver on whatever you purchase.
September 12, 2008 7:04 AM PDT


Dave Stewart		 One other thing I forgot to mention (gee this is starting to look like a separate blog post!).

We put our best support for the newest components, rather than rewrite support for older ones. For example on wireless, we chose to write a totally new driver for the then-current 4965, rather than rewrite the driver for the older 3945.

Lesson - buy something new rather than go for something old.
September 12, 2008 1:58 PM PDT


UX-admin		 Help, need a little help?

Look, I don't really care if you "pimp" a vendor or not, since I explicitly asked, so it's OK.

"Why isn't the serum working?"

"...Perhaps we're asking the wrong questions."

So let's rephrase that question, and let's be very, very specific:

which vendors produce laptops that use an intel wireless and wired Chipset, that OpenSolaris will work with?
September 12, 2008 2:12 PM PDT


UX-admin		 P.S.: in the absence of Germanic letters like äöü, the following ASCII equivalents are perfectly fine:

ä: ae
ö: oe
ü: ue

Just figured you might like to know. That way, you'll be able to write "Björn" without the ö.
September 12, 2008 2:20 PM PDT


Dave Stewart		 @UX-admin - well when you phrase it that way... :-)

There are many manufacturers who are our valued customers and provide really great products. We're trying to make sure all of them who provide products under the Centrino and vPro brands get great driver support from us.

Seriously, if someone from the community wants to contribute a public answer here, it would be more appropriate than me, even though this blog is only my opinion and not that of my employer.
September 12, 2008 2:33 PM PDT


UX-admin		 Hint:

if you list them all, none can claim particular favor over another. Then it's up to me to decide who gets my money, based on what I evaluate as best fitting my needs.
September 12, 2008 4:43 PM PDT


tonyn		 Absolutely awesome. Please keep us posted on OpenSolaris progress. I'm looking forward to my next Intel machine laptop.
September 13, 2008 2:15 PM PDT


Dave Stewart		 @tonyn - thanks for the kind words! I'll try to keep up the information flow, in this blog and in videos (until I run out of things to say...) Enjoy your next laptop! I have a Centrino2 coming soon, a Sony VAIO with Intel graphics and Shirley Peak wireless, and I'm looking forward to spinning up the latest bits on it to see how it does.
December 3, 2008 3:35 AM PST


xRaich[o]²x		 My new Laptop has the Intel 5100 chip and it's not recognized by the current drivers. Should be supported since build 99 though.

http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=4793

Regards,
Björn
December 3, 2008 3:39 AM PST


xRaich[o]²x		 And by the way, something i reaaaaaaaaaaally miss is support for WPA Enterprise. We are using that at university, so right now i don't have any wireless access when using Intel Chips and Opensolaris in a wpa enterprise enviornment.

Regards,
Björn

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