linux compat and linux-only drivers

[fbsduser]

Hi. I had been recently running into some hardware that runs fine under linux using drivers that come with the kernel, but aren't supported nativelly by BSD. And I had the curiosity to ask. Can the linux-compat package act as a sort of wrapper to allow the user to use unsupported devices via linux drivers "wrapper" in the linux-compat package?

[DrJ]

No, unless they are something like printer drivers for CUPS. The linux emulation is user-land only, and not for the kernel space.

[phoenix]

With the exception of some USB device drives, using the devel/linux-kmod-compat port, Linux drivers will not work in FreeBSD. Just as Windows drivers will not work in MacOS X.

[Oko]

Originally Posted by DrJ

No, unless they are something like printer drivers for CUPS. The linux emulation is user-land only, and not for the kernel space.

No period. PPD files are not drivers. Those are description files for printer. If your printer doesn't speak Post Script programing language the drivers are provided by packages Ghostscript, Gutenprint, HPLIP, Splix, and foo2zjs. Those are natively compiled on BSDs from the source. Try to use Linux version of Ghostscript and you will see if it works. By the same taken that is why it is so important that above programs are written in portable fashion not just for Linux.
You can ask the porter of HPLIP and Splix driver of your version of BSD how difficult is to compile those programs on BSDs since they written only for Linux. HPLIP is semi functional on all BSDs because it makes false assumption about USB stuck and Splix is not even compiling on OpenBSD.

[DrJ]

Thanks for the correction. I still use a Postscript printer (an HP 4M+, FWIW), so I've intentionally avoided the issue.

[fbsduser]

Will a USB-based wifi card work with the linux-compat stuff (the driver comes as part of the linux kernel)?

[phoenix]

You can't just drop a driver source package in the kernel source tree and hope it compiles and works. Nor can you drop a binary driver on the filesystem and expect it to load into the kernel (the modules framework is very different between Linux and FreeBSD).

If it's not listed in the ports tree, then probably not. Check the output of:

# cd /usr/ports
# make quicksearch name=kmod

to see which drivers and other Linux "modules" are known to work. Most of them, though, as for USB web cameras.

[fbsduser]

Originally Posted by phoenix

You can't just drop a driver source package in the kernel source tree and hope it compiles and works. Nor can you drop a binary driver on the filesystem and expect it to load into the kernel (the modules framework is very different between Linux and FreeBSD).

If it's not listed in the ports tree, then probably not. Check the output of:

# cd /usr/ports
# make quicksearch name=kmod

to see which drivers and other Linux "modules" are known to work. Most of them, though, as for USB web cameras.

The driver I'm talking about is the rtl8187b one which is included in the 2.6.27 kernel, which means that I'm not "dropping" it into the linux kernel, it's already in it (that driver was put in mainline linux kernel by the time of the 2.6.27 release). But if it exist in the BSD kernel (unlikelly) or if ndisgen can handle vista drivers (also unlikelly) then I might be able to use it native or via ndisgen.

[BSDfan666]

Weongyo Jeong wrote a driver called urtw(4) for 8187L which is a member of the 8187x, in his initial email he said.

Originally Posted by Weongyo Jeong

With lack of H/W I can't add codes for 8187/8187B devices that AFAIK they can share a lot of codes and can be supported without modifying many part of codes.

I'm not sure if this driver was committed to FreeBSD, but it was recently ported to OpenBSD by Kevin Lo, still no 8187B support yet though.

Perhaps you should contact Weongyo, depending on your situation.. perhaps you can help him support your card natively?

I hope it helps..

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/f...er/000217.html

[BSDfan666]

Just a small comment about your question; driver compatibility layers are never a good idea in the long run.