Linux Laptop

[cjb at mrao.cam.ac.uk (Chris Ball)]

>> On Thu, 4 May 2006 08:27:16, Ward Vandewege <ward at pong.be> said:

   > Now get this: the HP bios checks the pci id of the mini-pci card,
   > and *REFUSES TO BOOT* if you don't have an HP-branded card in
   > there. It says 'illegal mini-pci card detected' or something along
   > those lines.

It's possible to reprogram the BIOS to contain different allowed PCI
IDs, or to disable the check completely.  

For ThinkPads:
   http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpad/wireless.html

For HPs:
   http://www.richud.com/HP-Pavilion-104-Bios-Fix/

This behaviour isn't limited to IBM and HP; now Intel ipw3945 chipset
wireless cards require a binary userspace daemon (running as root!) to
monitor the channel/power output of the card, again to comply with the
FCC.  A userspace daemon is slightly less obnoxious than using a
proprietary kernel module, since it will be easy to reverse-engineer the
way that the userspace daemon talks to the (open-source) kernel module
and use an open-source driver instead.

   > Nonsense about FCC requirements is just that - the third-party
   > cards that are sold (e.g. the MSI one) _are FCC approved_. And if
   > Dell can get away with not DRM'ing their machines, why on earth can
   > HP and IBM not do this?

Given that now Intel are involved too, I do at least believe that each
of the companies are doing what their lawyers believe they need to.
I don't think this is a case of lock-in as you're describing it to be.

   > Besides; ndiswrapper is a workaround. Ralink releases GPL'd
   > drivers. They work. Their hardware works. It's cheap.

I still have a treasured old silver Orinoco PC card lying around in case
this situation gets any worse.  :)

- Chris.
-- 
Chris Ball   <cjb at mrao.cam.ac.uk>    <http://blog.printf.net/>