What The ^@$! Is This Blog About?

2005-10-24T02:01:00.000+08:00

Thank you for visiting this blog. As mentioned on the right, this blog is about my experience with Broadcom, the $14 billion dollar company that makes the wireless chipset in my Acer Travelmate 2413.

The story goes like this...

... It all started with Acer.

Just a few days ago, I bought 3 sets of Acer TM 2413 from a friend of mine who works for a computer shop in Sim Lim Square (a popular place in Singapore that techie goes to buy their IT products). At that moment, Acer TM 2413 is one of the cheapest notebooks on the market, selling at SGD$1,158 that comes with Linpus Linux CD. As someone who used Fedora for basic computing, I guess that I don't mind having Linux on my notebooks either.

After getting 3 sets (for my office), I tried to boot up one of them and to my surprise, it boots into Linpus text-shell mode. I called up Acer technical hotline (which has a pretty lengthy announcement) and a guy answered. This guy probably have no clue what I'm talking about as he has to refer to someone else whenever I ask him a question.

To cut it short, this guy told me that Acer TM 2413 actually does not come with an operating system at all and so that's why the price is so cheap. He makes me feel like "Hey sucker, who ask you to be so cheapo and buy this notebook?". He keep stressing that "Acer do not provide support to its operating system." Period.

"BUT WHY THE HELL DID YOU GUYS WANNA SHIP OUT SOMETHING AND CLAIM NO RESPONSIBILITIES?! ALL I WANT IS TO GET INTO THE STUPID GUI INTERFACE!!!"

After which, he couldn't stand my anger and transferred me to a much more capable technical guy - Ramy or Rammie. He seems more linux-inclined but he has no idea what happen either. It seems to me that Acer have no clue why they even sold this model. But nonetheless, he was friendly enough that I didn't slam the phone down. I joked that I will resolve this myself.

Hmm... All I wanted to know... Is the Linpus Linux that is preloaded has any X-Windows (Gnone, KDE) on it? And if so, how can I access to it?

I went to Linpus website and found out that they don't give any form of support. This Taiwanese OS development company has a webpage which shows you the usual support links but check this out - http://www.linpus.com/Support/default.htm . The links do not works at all and I wrote straight to Linpus and to my surprise, they answered the email within 20 minutes.

But Mr. Michael Chang (from Linpus) clarified that my Acer comes with customized Linux that does not have graphic environment and is kind enough to link me to a website that provide Linux command reference.

Ok. Linpus is off my hook and I shall not torture them. Now, Acer.

I wrote to Stan Shih, the founder of Acer but seems to me that this guy is probably retired, living in his vineyard in France, sipping Shiraz with a pretty French girl.... because he didn't even look into the matter. I CC the email to him (stanshih@acer.com.tw) while the main receiver is Acer Singapore marketing team.

Someone by the name of Connie Quek received the email and send to Kok Min and Noel Francis Saldanha. I guess that NFS must be somebody important because like Stan, he didn't reply either. Probably that part of Acer Employment Benefits for senior executives.

Then, this nice guy by the name of Wah Kok Min replied.

Dear Peter,

We apologize for the misunderstanding. Please allow me to clarify the matter. The Travelmate 2413NWLC which you had purchased are sold without an operating system. This helps to lower the cost of notebook for customer who had already got their own copy of Window XP. However, there is a regulation that all computers cannot ship-out without an operating system. Therefore, in order to meet this regulation, Acer had loaded a text version of Linpus Linux. This is similar to MS-DOS environment. It is not able to enter into GUI/KDE environment because it is not a complete version of Linpus Linux. Travelmate 2400 series is certified only for Windows XP environment. Customers are advisable to purchase and install these notebooks with their own copy of Windows XP. All the necessary Windows XP drivers are provided in the Resource CD found in the accessory kit.

Regards,
Wah, Kok-Min
Technical Support Engineer
Acer Computer (Singapore) Pte Ltd

Nice. It really calm me down because I knew that I bought a cheap notebook and doesn't expect to come with at least something. And now, I know that it doesn't come with an OS. (Although in the box, there are instruction manuals for MS.)

That's all I need to know actually.

So I took my Fedora Linux (Core 3) CDs and installed them on one of the sets, knowingly that this experiment is gonna cost me a headache again. After the successful installation, I realized two issues - the screen resolution seems awkward and that the wireless card cannot be detected.

Kok Min explains that some tweaking to some files can set the screen to 1280 x 800, instead of 1280 x 1024. No wonder all my fonts seems shorter. Cool.

But as for the wireless card problem, I went to Acer website and they don't have any Linux driver for it. I found from Kok Min that there is an underground effort to write a workaround solution - http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/ for the Broadcom chipsets.

Holy Shit! This workaround relies on a true techie who dare to mess with the kernel codes. And after exploring for a while, it seems that there is another solutions - NDISWRAPPER which is under SourceForge - http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/.

NDISWrapper wrote - "Some vendors do not release specifications of the hardware or provide a linux driver for their wireless network cards. This project implements Windows kernel API and NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) API within Linux kernel. A Windows driver for wireless network card is then linked to this implementation so that the driver runs natively, as though it is in Windows, without binary emulation."

Maybe this is the holy grail to my wireless problem?

Cool and I found two websites that teach how to do it - http://www.ces.clemson.edu/linux/fc2-2200BG.shtml & http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=125627

But wait... I am a newbie to Linux and with even with all these commands, I don't think I have any idea how to fix it.

So the story about Broadcom will starts from here...

I went to Broadcom website. Tried to find who is the CEO. Did a Google search for his email. Nil. Tried to find who is the next important person. Did a Google search. Bingo.

Dr. Henry Samueli is the CTO and the founder of Broadcom. I think he might be passionate enough to chip in and help because he founded the company.

Hi Henry,

I know you're a busy man but I hope you could look into this issue.

As a supplier of wireless chipsets to major firms, it seems that there are no linux drivers from Broadcom. Right now, the best alternatives seem to be using a NDISWRAPPER workaround or using http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/. But would Broadcom wants its customer to feel frustrated?

To date, Linux is gradually attaining more market share and I feel that Broadcom should allocate a team of Linux specialists to tap onto this market. By having ready chipsets & drivers, more manufacturers will be keen to integrate the solution into their products, as there is a worldwide demand for cheaper PC/notebooks which means that Linux would be an excellent option.

But first, please do help by getting one of your engineers to write out the drivers for Linux platform. We are currently using Red Hat Fedora (FC3) OS to power our Acer Travelmate 2413 notebook (which use your Broadcom wireless chipsets). Here's a quicker solution, think of how to integrate NDISWRAPPER & your windows driver... packaged it to allow a fuss-free installation.

Hope to hear from you real soon.

Cheers,
Peter Tan

Yes, I always do the "top-down" method to solve issues. As a CEO to my own firm, whenever someone email to me, I will listen and try to help the customers in anyway I can. And I expected no less from other senior executives in other companies to do the same too.

I have tried with Fuji Xerox and its CTO actually took time to write back and offer help. Even though end of the day, the damn Xerox machine still cannot provide PostScript capabilities, I let off the matter because someone there cares and took effort. Bless him.

However, a guy by the name of Michael Hurlston wrote back.

Mr. Tan,

Appreciate your comments and concerns. We will look into this. Historically, we have not seen the number of linux laptops that you detail, and, for the ones we do see, the NDISWRAPPER seems to be sufficient.

Regards,

M. Hurlston

And this is why my nick for this blog is Historically Low.

It seems that Broadcom doesn't care... "Yes, we see no market and we are not going to write any Linux drivers. Too bad." And NDISWRAPPER is not even written by Broadcom and it doesn't work with Acer to bundled this workaround.

I wrote back to him and CC to the some of the people at http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/

Hi Mike,

To do a NDISWRAPPER work-around is pretty tough too.

Since there are people who are doing underground patches (e.g. http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/), it means people are already frustrated by the lack of linux drivers for your chipset. Broadcom is a $14 billion dollars company because people buy your products knowingly that it has support.

So is Broadcom going to issue an "driver installation" package for Linux? And if so, when? And if not, how many more frustrated individuals are needed to warrant a Linux driver development? Broadcom has more than 3,000 staff and I believe that one or two engineers could be seconded to integrated NDISWRAPPER and your Windows-based drivers, right?

I hope to hear a favourable assistance soon.

*Just wondering if Broadcom is a $14 million dollars company, it probably would have listen to its customers and got the driver up and ready.

Upset,
Peter Tan

And surprisely, I receive an email from Michael Buesch, a developer from bcm43xx.berlios.de -

Michael,

Needless to say, that we require a free (as in GPL)
driver for linux.
A binary blob does not buy us anything and we are still forced
to develop a free alternative.

Best Regards,
Michael Buesch, bcm43xx.berlios.de developer.

Hopefully I will receive a good reply from Broadcom. And once I do, I will post it here.

Connecting Nothing

What The ^@$! Is This Blog About?