Do the Ubuntu Dev team write their own drivers for specific wireless firmware?

Question

I was using Debian for a while and while Debian was not able to set up my wireless connection automatically; I was able to download, compile, and install the b43-fwcutter package/according firmware drivers. While the drivers worked, they were nothing compared to what ever driver Ubuntu is using (I decided I'd give the new version of Ubuntu a try). My wireless connection on Ubuntu is almost always at 100% signal strength (repored from network manager), and it loads pages and downloads faster than windows does.

So is Ubuntu using a more specific driver that it automatically installs, using it's own specialized driver for the firmware (which the dev team wrote?), or does it simply just set up network connections differently somehow compared to debian?

Answer 1

The Debian distribution focuses very intensely on stability, and their process for accepting packages (user software, drivers, etc.) into their "stable" repository is very long. By default, Debian installations only utilize the stable repository. Ubuntu, in an effort to be more cutting-edge and user-friendly, is more relaxed in its requirements for admission of packages into its stable repository. This allows more advanced code to be deployed quickly.



Both Debian and Ubuntu only include open-source software by default. However, Ubuntu is much more accommodating than Debian to the possibility of the user wishing to use proprietary drivers. Using a closed-source driver can improve hardware performance, because they are written by the manufacturer (who knows the hardware well), as opposed to open-source developers (who must typically reverse-engineer the hardware). If you chose to use a proprietary driver under Ubuntu, that could easily be the reason for the difference in performance. In which case, the driver was written by the manufacturer of the card, not Ubuntu developers.



Developers working on Ubuntu do not generally write drivers; that work is left to Linux kernel developers.

Answer 2

No, they just have a better driver database.



And Ubuntu also has some other software controlling it's network connections. Not sure if it is homegrown or not.



Remember, Ubuntu takes debian and builds on top of it. So Ubuntu is debian reworked into a more friendly environment. Debian is more of a server OS.

Answer 3

No, they mostly just package the software.