Wireless Card
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I have a Thinkpad T500 and the built in wireless card is not compatible with Trisquel. I have been using a cheap-o linksys notebook adapter in place, and I can confirm that it works with free software if anyone else wants to use it:
http://www.amazon.com/Cisco-Linksys-WPC55AG-Dual-Band-Wireless-Notebook/dp/B00008RUJM
My problem is that I don't like it because of the way it protrudes out of the side which makes it not fit in my backpack. For this reason I want to replace it.
My 2 options are:
1) Install the proprietary firmware-blobs for my built-in wireless card
2) Replace the built in wireless card
Here are my questions:
Am I allowed to ask how to install proprietary firmware here?
Is there a different WLAN card I can use that is compatible with Trisquel, and will fit in the same slot as my current one for the T500?
I know for sure I can remove the WLAN card from this video:
http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product-and-parts/detail.page?&LegacyDocID=MIGR-72544
However, I am not sure where or how to find a replacement liberated WLAN card.
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This community will not support the installation of proprietary firmware-blobs.
Though the T500 has a slot that is MiniPCIe in form factor, it has been crippled to only accept devices with PCI-ID's contained in a BIOS whitelist. The cards sold which are white listed come with an additional requirement that they must carry the Lenovo brand name and consequently cost twice as much. If an unauthorized card is plugged in it gives a 1802 error on initial boot up before it even touches the operating system. It'll report "unauthorized MiniPCI network card".
While these companies claim the systems are restricted to these cards because the FCC requires it the reality is it is due to profit. Many companies don't white list and the FCC has stated that there is no such requirement. There story then changed to being other nations have such restrictions. In any case this is just an excuse to make more money. It is highly profitable.
The solution is to not buy from such companies. Toshiba, Dell, HP, and Lenovo/IBM are on the bad guy list.
Now that said there are a few less desirable options for working around such problems. These systems can still be used with USB wifi cards.
Unfortunately its not that simple to pick up a wifi card or any device because model numbers don't equate to chipsets and its the chipsets that matter which driver is used. As an example: While a Linksys wifi card (say model LNS-230WIFI) had an Atheros AR9273 that was compatible with GNU/Linux at one time the same model doesn't use this chipset today. Today it uses a RTL8293 and that chipset is not compatible with GNU/Linux or free software operating systems. Unfortunately because of this many users end up purchasing this card thinking it will work only to find that they have been led astray.
Now there are a few chipsets that will work and you can attempt to locate cards by chipset. It's not perfect either unfortunately. Chipsets also have different IDs and if the ID is not in the driver it won't work either or it may work with a future version of the OS.
There is one-four USB wifi chipset that will work out of the box with Trisquel 6 that use certain IDs. The first three are USB G chipsets: RTL8187B/RTL8187L/RTL8187 and the 2nd one is an older generation USB N chipset AR9170. There is a third that will also work provided you install the firmware and apply all OS updates. This is the AR9271/AR7010. I can't say all devices will work which have this chipset although many will.
I'm the founder & CEO of ThinkPenguin and the company is focused on free software. There are two models we sell at the moment and will probably have a third out in the future with these chipsets.
The USB G Wireless Adapter uses the RTL8187B: works great & out of the box in all recent Trisquel releases
Then there is the USB N adapter which is using the AR9271 chipset:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/TPE-N150USB
Works with OS update and installation of free firmware.
The third is also dependent on the OS update and the install of free firmware:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/TPE-N150USBL
The two USB N adapters above are certified by the Free Software Foundation and will have excellent support for all free distributions going forward. Most other distributions work out of the box with them already.
>This community will not support the installation of proprietary firmware-blobs.
That's fair enough.
>The solution is to not buy from such companies. Toshiba, Dell, HP, and Lenovo/IBM are on the bad guy list.
I was aware that these companies are bad for certain reasons, and only bought my thinkpad because it was a good deal (100$). Most of my money is going to tuition and books. It's a shame that free comes with a price these days.
I'll consider buying one of those USB dongles, because they look like they would protrude as much as this Linksys card.
Thanks for all the info.
You can replace your current wlan mini pcie card (http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:T500) with for example this one: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-mini-pcie
From what Chris said about the whitelist/blacklist for mini pcie cards, I'm not sure it will work. Thanks for the suggestion however.
Sorry, hadn't read that part of his comment. But anyway, I had the same problem with my HP Pavilion but that problem was easily solved after flashing my BIOS with a modded version. For your notebook you can look for example to: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/20223-Remove-whitelist-check-add-ID-s-to-break-hardware-restrictions-mod-requests/page322?p=711278&viewfull=1#post711278 or http://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Removed-Lenovo-ThinkPad-T500-whitelist-removal
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Modifying the BIOS and flashing it can be risky. Not something I'd suggest for people who aren't willing to risk breaking there system and/or for people aren't tech savy.
And apparently it's a binary blob.
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It's already a binary blob... not sure tweaking it to remove DRM is really the problem. The problem is it's a blob in the first place and unfortunately right now there isn't much we can do about that. Removing the DRM to me would seem to be a good thing even if it is still a binary blob.
Hopefully things pick up for ThinkPenguin and we can fix it or some other organization comes along and says "hey- that's a security risk- lets fix it". Then funds development and reverse engineering efforts.
Or even better Intel cooperates on this front.
On the topic of wireless, this has probably been asked before but I have an HP Mini 110 with proprietary Broadcom wireless. I've been using Xubuntu since it offers a non-free driver but I would love to switch my netbook over to Trisquel without having to use an external wifi adaptor, is their a non-proprietary firmware alternative?
Also ThinkPenguin rocks and I'm glad their exists a source for freedom friendly computers that don't use any proprietary drivers, I hope to pick up a Wee 3 by Christmas. :)
I have a HP laptop with a Broadcom which works. These models work:
* BCM4306
* BCM4311 revision 1
* BCM4318
* BCM4320
To find out which you have input
lspci |grep BCM
Looks like its a BCM4312, which upon further investigation is apparently not supported by Trisquel according to http://trisquel.info/en/forum/wifi-enabling-issues-dell-bcm4312-lp-phy
Oh well guess I'll keep Xubuntu on it, thank you for the reply though.
A prime example of why from now on I plan to only purchase computers from sources that specialize in non proprietary driver builds.
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It may be possible to replace the wifi chip in your system. However HP, Dell, Toshiba, and Lenovo/IBM, and apparently possibly Apple, and possibly Sony, now that I think about it, use digital restrictions to prevent the use of third party wifi cards. This is to increase sales of after warranty parts and service. There were claims about FCC regulations, but the FCC clearly confirmed this was not the case, and as a result the industry flip flopped and found another poor excuse. Despite that most if not all other companies continue to ship systems without digital restrictions on this slot.
If your system is not branded with one of these companies names there is probably a mini pci/pcie/half height pcie wifi card which will work as a replacement. ThinkPenguin (I'm the CEO & Founder) has cards for every type of slot and can find them here:
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/
* Also there is 25% of the profits donated to the Trisquel project if you use the above URL to place an order.
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