Linux community mourns loss of WiFi driver expert Larry Finger
The Linux community mourns Larry Finger, a key figure in WiFi driver development. With 1,500+ kernel patches, he enhanced Linux wireless support, leaving a lasting legacy of open-source collaboration and technical excellence.
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The Linux community is mourning the loss of Larry Finger, a prominent figure known for his extensive contributions to WiFi drivers in the Linux kernel. Finger, who began his involvement in 2005 and had over 1,500 kernel patches accepted, passed away on June 21, 2024. His expertise ranged from the Broadcom BCM43XX driver to various Linux WiFi drivers like RTW88 and R8188EU. Finger's work significantly improved wireless hardware support in Linux, making it more user-friendly and reliable. His legacy reflects the power of open-source collaboration and the lasting impact individuals can have on technology. The community acknowledges his dedication and technical prowess, which have shaped the current state of Linux wireless networking. While his passing marks the end of an era, his contributions will continue to benefit users and inspire future contributors in the Linux ecosystem.
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28 commentsIn the early 00s I bought a laptop that had an RTL 8188 CE card in it that ran awful under Linux. I forked his driver and made a number of changes to it and eventually got my wifi working really well (by doing things that could never be upstreamed due to legal/regulatory restrictions). Over the years I rebased often and reviewed the changes, and learned a lot from watching his code. It took a bit of getting used to, but a certain amount of beauty and appreciation emerged. One thing was very clear: This man was doing a lot of the work to keep the ship together. Even just keeping the driver compilable with each kernel release often took some non-trivial refactoring, which he did reliably and well.
Larry, you will be missed my friend. RIP.
If you are waiting to reach out to somebody, don't wait too long or it may suddenly be too late. The years can slip by in a flash.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/larry-finger-linux-w...
I remember cursing ndis wrappers and Broadcom wifi ecosystem a long time ago, Larry helped fixed that, and mentored many others along the way.
quote from the arstechnica article "In a 2023 Quora response to someone asking if someone without "any formal training in computer science" can "contribute something substantial" to Linux, Finger writes, "I think that I have." Finger links to the stats for the 6.4 kernel, showing 172,346 lines of his code in it, roughly 0.5% of the total."
What do I think about? Why the hell did he volunteer his post work hours trying to do this menial job hardware thing. Did he not have a family or something? He did. And today they lost him.
> so Finger helped reverse-engineer the necessary specs by manually dumping and reading hardware registers
I really wanted to leave this quote here for all to see. The badassery of this act should not be underestimated.
I've done a little bit of work along those lines. Reverse engineering my laptop's features, writing my own free software to drive them from inside Linux, emailing the manufacturer asking for documentation and receiving user help pages. It was mostly USB stuff, the most well documented interface imaginable, and it was still hard. I simply cannot fathom how he reverse engineered this Wi-Fi stuff. That's just a huge inspiration for me, I hope I can get near his level some day.
Thank you so much for your work and RIP.
/years/decades/s
Please don't get me started on suspend-mode low energy consumption. It hasn't been true for any device I've owned. Perhaps yours, fine, but my anecdotal experiences and acquaintances' show you're in a minority.
The inclusion of the fish in the tagline made me smile. There’s an innocence to the sentence that captures the image really well.
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