Is ndiswrapper Dead?
For a long time, ndiswrapper, which uses Windows wireless drivers to make wireless cards work on Linux, was a vitally important component of many Ubuntu systems. In many cases, it was the only way for users to access wireless Internet. Unfortunately, the ndiswrapper project’s pulse has seemed to go from faint to non-existent over the last several months.
In September, some important parts of its website went down–including the immensely valuable database of user-supplied testimonies on the performance of various wireless cards under ndiswrapper (for a mirror of this database, check here)–and have yet to be resurrected. Moreover, the project, which used to push out version upgrades with great regularity, hasn’t had a stable release in over half a year, and its subversion code doesn’t seem to have been touched in a couple of months. The current release doesn’t even compile on the 2.6.27 kernel, used by Ubuntu 8.10, without the application of a third-party patch.
Given all this, I think it’s fair to conclude that ndiswrapper is about to follow Gentoo down the blue tunnel into the Afterlife.
Fortunately, most users don’t have to care. Over the last couple of years, the likelihood that a given wireless card will ‘just work’ on Ubuntu has increased dramatically, as more and more wireless drivers are merged into the kernel, thanks to the Linux wireless project. And even if a device isn’t not up and running out-of-the-box, a little googling is usually sufficient to remedy the problem.
Nonetheless, certain cards still require ndiswrapper to work with Linux. Some devices lack Linux drivers entirely–Atheros-based USB dongles are an example–and thus rely on ndiswrapper to function. In other cases, the native drivers aren’t quite up to par, and ndiswrapper is a more reliable solution.
I thus worry what will become of those who aren’t fortunate enough to own chipsets with native support. Clearly, telling users that wireless isn’t for them because they have the bad luck of owning an unsupported device is unacceptable.
For the time being, of course, ndiswrapper continues to support a majority of cards. But as Windows wireless drivers are rewritten and the Linux kernel is changed, it’s only a matter of time before ndiswrapper no longer works at all, with no one left to maintain it.
Ideally, every wireless card in the world will have native Linux support by then. But for that to happen, Canonical and other organizations that can leverage real weight need to work hard with hardware vendors to ensure that more device drivers can be written for Linux.
Otherwise, wireless support is bound once again to become the great thorn in desktop Linux’s side that it was for too many years.
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Hm, and we just were going to have a metting on the auto-ndiswrapper project – a thing that searches for the appropriate drivers for your card and installs them, with a user-friendly gui.
Vadi: I checked out auto-ndiswrapper last summer but didn’t realize it was still being actively developed now. While I think it’s better to encourage the use of open-source native drivers wherever possible, I’ve long wondered why someone didn’t write a script long ago that could auto-configure wireless cards based on PCI ID–wouldn’t be too hard at all, although it would be sort of tedious to keep up-to-date, I imagine. If your project does continue to put out releases, I’d be interested to see where it goes, and whether ndiswrapper continues to work for you despite its dormant status.
Without bearing any malice to the developers of the ndiswrapper I certainly hope it’s dead. The fact that we don’t need such a thing any longer can only be a good sign for Linux in general. What we need to do now is rate the devices that work best with Linux and point consumers to those devices.
Competition is always a great driver to improved compatibility.
Those of us who own Canon printers are told “too bad” ’cause they don’t work with linux. What makes wireless users so special?
I think that it’s clearly unacceptable that any commonly used device can’t be run with linux.
captkit: on a side note, to be fair, Canon does provide Linux drivers for a lot of its products, although in my experience they’re not especially Ubuntu-friendly (.rpm’s rather than .deb’s) and Canon is not nearly as cooperative as other printer vendors with the free-software community. If your printer doesn’t work, you should really do some googling or ask for help in forums if you haven’t already; I bet that someone knows how to make it work on Linux.
Also, I think that wireless is a bigger issue for most people. You can usually work around printer issues–save your document to pdf and transfer it to another machine to print, or print from a Windows virtual machine inside Ubuntu, for example. Getting around without support for your wireless card is not as easy.
Alien works wonders on RPMs. You can also install Yum. It’s on the Ubuntu CD.
Strangely, printers seem to be a weak point for Linux. Many printers don’t work properly. Dell printers don’t work at all and Dell has been involved with Linux for at least a decade!
It seems to be an area that’s just not that important. If you run Linux and need a printer? Buy a HP. They work perfectly.
Well, they usually are only a few bucks;)
Scanners are another weak point (gasp!).
I have a Canon (gasp! again?) N640 I think – 5 or 6 years oled – which is supposedly supported by XSANE library, but it just won’t work (and, oh yeah, I’ve googled all the way up to God).