FreeBSD inquire

[Sam Leffler]

David O'Brien wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2006 at 11:37:13AM -0700, Sam Leffler wrote:
>> I'd like to see support
>> for these parts 'cuz they appear frequently in laptops; often with bios
>> locking which makes swapping cards problematic.
> 
> Scary.  I've always assumed I could buy a laptop with any wireless NIC
> and change it.  Do you know which laptop vendors do this?  Can you say
> anything more on the "bios locking"?
> 

Regulatory compliance certification is done with unit testing (wireless
card + pigtails + antennae). Allowing arbitrary combinations can
theoretically leave the laptop vendor open to heavy fines; hence some
vendors have taken to disabling a laptop booted with a wireless card
that's not been certified (the bios checks the pci device id and will
not allow the machine to boot if the card isn't on it's approved list).
In practice this bios locking is simple to workaround for cards that get
their pci device id from eeprom--if you're so inclined. A bit of
searching will find articles by people that have done it.

I've seen bios locking done by ibm and hp.  Wouldn't be surprised if
many others do it.

	Sam