Many expressed their appreciation for Kalle's years of service to the Linux networking stack but as of writing no one has stepped up to take over the formal maintainer role. Thankfully there are other Linux WiFi driver developers out there working on the increasing number of Linux wireless drivers, just not any immediate leader yet to take on the maintainer duties.

Good to know :)

While I didn't use Linux back then, I heard the wifi situation was difficult to deal with. I assume this maintainer is responsible for fixing that over the years?

[–] bitchkat@lemmy.world 2 points 31 minutes ago

ndiswrapper shudder

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 7 points 3 hours ago

Dw the WiFi situation on FreeBSD is far worse

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 48 points 8 hours ago (4 children)

I heard the wifi situation was difficult to deal with

Understatement of the year LMAO nah it was terrible. Typically the top 3 biggest PITA common issues was GPU, WiFi and trackpad, in that order. Every. Time. Didn't have the right brand, you were SOL. If you had a Dell with that wonderful WiFi card whitelist the damn brands that worked were always off it or were crappy.

Though I'd take WiFi driver issues over having to deal with that dam GPU bumble bee-thingy (idr anymore, the gaming laptop GPU "hot switching" thing)

I'm going to go lay down and have my trauma flashbacks now...

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Sound, too, if you have anything better than just stereo.

[–] spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Typically the top 3 biggest PITA common issues was GPU, WiFi and trackpad, in that order. Every. Time.

Nvidia drivers are literally the reason I keep going back to windows on my gaming rig. Any time I get a Linux install working the way I like it, within 6-10 months the graphics would shit the bed and I'd fight with it until I gave up and went back just to have a working is with minimal after work IT bullshit.

All my servers are Linux tho. I'll probably try again later in the year when 10 goes EOS

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Not saying you need to do this, especially if you do 4K, but my solution was just buying AMD GPUs. I'm on a Radeon RX 6800 now (RX 580 before) and things are just so nice and easy with my dual-boot.

[–] chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz 2 points 48 minutes ago

If I had to give up either Linux or Nvidia, it's not even a question. It's Nvidia, and it's not even close.

I sold my 3070 and bought a 7800xt just so I could have a smoother experience, and I wasn't even having issues.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

It's what happens when all the desktop hardware is designed for just one single OS's ecosystem. Running something else can be touch and go if you happen to have something slightly exotic, even if it has great specs.

It sucks, but it's still how the market works now.

And don't think that the few little companies selling Linux computers change anything. They just hand pick the Windows hardware that's known to work well.

All in all, it has gotten better though. Nowadays, Linux is acknowledged by a lot of hardware companies. They design for Windows, but a number of them will make an effort to release some sort of data, or driver, or something to get the Linux side going. Back in the 90s, it certainly wasn't as easy.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 6 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

bumble-bee thingy

I was going to say wrong transformer because the technology was called nVidia Optimus

But apparently there's an utility named Bumblebee to deal with it.

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 hour ago

Haha there is no way that's accidental, typical nerd naming, I love it

[–] Aghast@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

I think he was referring to the GPU switching software to make Optimus work on Linux.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Bumblebee

[–] swizzlestick@lemmy.zip 28 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Back in the day it just worked because you bought a card with a supported chip.... or you had to do some ungodly things with ndiswrapper to get the Windows driver loaded.

I think back then I was using wicd as well.

It's come a long way.

[–] hera@feddit.uk 12 points 7 hours ago

Omfg I remember ndiswrapper, how the fuck did that thing even work. Loading a windows driver on Linux???