News: 0001523732

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

FreeBSD On Laptops Effort Gets Proof-Of-Concept Intel 802.11 a/b/g WiFi Working

([BSD] 58 Minutes Ago FreeBSD On Laptops)


In addition to the FreeBSD Foundation funding [1]work on s0ix sleep state support as part of their initiative to [2]improve FreeBSD's support for modern laptops , they have also been funding work on a number of other objectives, including better WiFi driver coverage. A milestone now being achieved for 2025 is getting a proof-of-concept Intel 802.11 a/b/g WiFi driver support working for this BSD operating system.

The FreeBSD Foundation has up on their blog today the first month's status report for enhancing laptop support and usability. As a sign of how far behind the FreeBSD wireless driver support sadly is, their WiFi work is marked by managing a proof-of-concept Intel 802.11 a/b/g WiFi driver. This Intel IWX WiFi driver isn't a new driver written from scratch but rather is based on code imported from OpenBSD via the Haiku OS project. This PoC driver has achieved network association and full 802.11 a/b/g functionality thus far. Mind you the 802.11g spec is now 22 years old and has long been succeeded by 802.11 n/ac/ax/be adapters.

The FreeBSD laptop project has also resulted in improved documentation for porting over updated Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) drivers from the Linux kernel to FreeBSD. The FreeBSD developers involved will next be working on re-basing their graphics driver support against what is found in the upstream Linux 6.12 LTS kernel but for now the Linux 6.7 kernel is their current porting milestone being celebrated.

Those wanting to learn more about the current FreeBSD laptop project efforts can find the monthly write-up on the [3]FreeBSD Foundation Blog .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-S0ix-Goal

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-Better-Laptops

[3] https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/laptop-support-and-usability-project-update-first-monthly-report-community-initiatives/


phoronix

Increased Electricity Consumption Blamed on Linux

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The US Department of Energy claims Linux is partially
responsible for the increased demand for electricity during the past year.
Electricity use was up 2.5% from January to September of 1998 compared with
the same period in 1997. "While some of the increase can be attributed to
higher temperatures over the summer," one Department bureaucrat explained,
"Linux is certainly a contributor to the increased demand for power."

When asked for clarification, the bureaucrat responded, "In the past, most
PCs have been turned off when not in use. Linux users, on the other hand,
usually don't turn off their computers. They leave them on, hoping to
increase their uptime to impress their friends. And since Linux rarely
crashes the entire system, those computers stay on for weeks, months, even
years at a time. With Linux use continuing to grow, we expect demand for
electricity to increase steadily over the next several years."

In response to the news, several utility companies have announced plans to
give away free Linux CDs to paying customers who request them. One anonymous
executive said, "The more people who use Linux, the more power they consume.
The more electricity they use, the more money we make. It's a win-win
combination." Yesterday Linus Torvalds was nominated as a candidate for the
Assocation of American Utility Companies Person of the Year.