Wireless Guide / NTFS Guide / New writing

Mon Jul 3 14:17:14 UTC 2006

having read your comments Rahul, i see the troubles. I can also see that 
more work needs to be done to show the native drivers, and the cards they 
work with. Many users just buy NIC's and have to use ndiswrapper, or other 
technology. I see the drivers list is growing for support for wireless, but 
can these guides be made more availble, and put in some section of its own. 
Please forgive me if this is already the case, but after a very short search 
(so apologies if im wrong) it seems there is little to help show me what 
devioces are allowed, and what can be used nativly, and thus what i should 
buy as a wireless NIC to have full native support as standard.

Forgive my outburts also. It is a hot day here, and the lengthy process 
takes its toll on many a user at times. I have used ndiswrapper for a long 
while, and it is far from great, hence the need for such guides, but i also 
am keen to see the development of open source native drivers, so perhaps 
guides to this degree and to this point should be made, and amalgamated into 
one section suitable for publication in its own wiki pages, and avaiable on 
the main fedora websites??

NTFS, guide could still be done then, if written correctly, am i right in 
assuming this?? I think i need help, before ploughing into documentation, 
with such complex legal, or patent encumbered policies, and apologies for 
the seemingly rediculous arguements i have amde, it is simply just not 
enough to have aone or two docs on the subject, we need guides and 
recomendations on where to get this stuff (native drivers i mean) and if 
they are shippe,d how to active them.

Mr Adam L Moreland (MAniX) | Registered Linux User: #417406
BA (Hons) Media Studies, 2nd Year, UoN
WEB: http://www.manix-place.co.uk
BLOG:http://www.2welshmen-and-a-sheep.co.uk
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System: Pentium 4 SKT478 2.8GHz Precott, AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+ | GPG Key: 
AC230C32
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pub 1024D/AC230C32 2006-05-21
Key fingerprint = 14F4 50F5 806C 25A5 B33C C2BF 982C 87B7 AC23 0C32
uid Adam Moreland (MAniX)
sub 2048g/A471FCE7 2006-05-21
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>From: Rahul Sundaram <sundaram at fedoraproject.org>
>Reply-To: For participants of the Documentation Project 
><fedora-docs-list at redhat.com>
>To: For participants of the Documentation Project 
><fedora-docs-list at redhat.com>
>Subject: Re: Wireless Guide / NTFS Guide / New writing
>Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 19:00:15 +0530
>
>Adam Moreland wrote:
>
>>I am for such a thing. Also can i ask for some verification, as as far as 
>>i know, fedora dfoes ship with supports for some wireless NIC's and 
>>ndiswrapper is an open source program. In fact can i ask for clarification 
>>on the definition of wireless ebing restricted and prohibited.
>>
>>The usage of ndiswrapper is to allow proprietry software to intergrate 
>>into the kernel, but this seems not to be an issue in other distros and in 
>>fact fedora ships with support for some Intel wireless cards already. 
>>Surely for the sake of fedora this type of distinction (of wireless being 
>>forbidden) is rediculous.
>
>
>Wireless is not forbidden. Ndiswrapper is.
>
>>After all it is an open source solution, using open source materials, to 
>>allow the open surce communtiy to have legal access to the drivers they 
>>already paid for once they purchased the wireless NIC.
>>
>>I cannot see how a guide on the usage of ndiswrapper (which is open 
>>source) cannot be achieved, so long as the guide doesnt explicitly promote 
>>the proprietry software. After all isnt this the point?? To intergrate the 
>>open source to merge the experience into one community solution?? Wireless 
>>is still a massive problem for Linux users, but i have guides for both 
>>SUSE 9.x/10.x and FC5.
>>
>>Please can i have clarification as to the reasons that ndiswrapper cannot 
>>be used in the fedora etras repo, and why the use of ndiswrapper 
>>contradicts the policy of fedora-docs on the use of proprietry means. I 
>>read the policy as meaning that you cannot use nVidia, as they make it, 
>>but ndiswrapper is a middle man, and is open source. We (linux community) 
>>have used the same workarounds to get Logitech keybaords, HP devices, most 
>>printers, laptops, speakers, sound cards, and other methods. The user need 
>>not support proprietry means, because by using the open source 
>>ndiswrapper, they are surely curcumventing the need to be protected by the 
>>policy on forbidding proprietry terms.
>>
>>I can see the huge gap caused by the lack of clarification from fedora on 
>>the use of such means like wireless, and also NTFS. The confusion is 
>>unwarrented surely. Cant there be a solution where the NTFS modules can be 
>>brought into fedora extras, and a guide be used accordingly. FAT32 is 
>>supported, and other forms and file systems, so why not NTFS, which has 
>>had a long history with fedora and is clearly completly open source.
>
>The explanation is given here at 
>http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-beta-list/2006-March/msg00395.html.  
>There are other technical reasons such as the issue of 4k stacks being the 
>default (http://lwn.net/Articles/160138/).  Many of the windows drivers 
>would not work with Ndiswrapper since they require more than 16 k stacks in 
>the kernel. The only purpose of ndiswrapper is to enable the loading of 
>binary only modules within the kernel from a different platform. Fedora 
>will not formally support or endorse such efforts.
>
>If you the read the forbidden items page you would know that Fedora does 
>not provide any software that is patent encumbered. Merely having the 
>source does not satisfy all our requirements for inclusion.
>
>Rahul
>
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