[HN Gopher] FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook...
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FreeBSD doesn't have Wi-Fi driver for my old MacBook. AI build one
for me
Author : varankinv
Score : 99 points
Date : 2026-02-23 21:44 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (vladimir.varank.in)
(TXT) w3m dump (vladimir.varank.in)
| petcat wrote:
| I feel like ubiquitous hardware support in every OS is going to
| be a solved problem soon. We're very close to just being able to
| set an AI coding agent to brute-force a driver for anything. The
| hardware designer would have to go well out of their way to
| obfuscate the interface if they really wanted to forbid it,
| instead of just not bothering to support an OS like BSD or Linux.
| rvz wrote:
| > We're very close to just being about to set an AI coding
| agent to brute-force a driver for anything.
|
| That sounds quite naive and it isn't that simple. Even the
| author expressed caution and isn't sure about how robust the
| driver is since he hasn't seen the code himself nor does he
| know if it works reliably.
|
| Even entertaining the idea, someone would have already have
| replaced those closed source Nvidia drivers that have firmware
| blobs and other drivers that have firmware blobs to be open
| replacements. (Yes Nouveau exists, but at the disadvantage of
| not performing as well as the closed source driver)
|
| That would be a task left to the reader.
| 6r17 wrote:
| I really wanted to believe the original comment as it is
| indeed not something I wouldn't see against - however there
| is truth that hardware can be capricious and one could
| definitely burn something flipping the wrong bit - here comes
| the fantastic world of Megaman ; where he's analyzing the
| bits of the unknown driver - one mistake could burn his owner
| the machine - he didn't receive the latest analysis tool ;
| hm...maybe some other ai knows about this on the darkclanet ?
|
| Sorry I drifted, claude is probably done generating stuff
| calmbonsai wrote:
| > We're very close to just being about to set an AI coding
| agent to brute-force a driver for anything.
|
| This is false. To "brute force" a driver, you'd need a
| feedback loop between the hardware's output and the driver's
| input.
|
| While, in theory, this is possible for some analog-digital
| traducers (e.g WI-FI radio), if the hardware is a human-
| interface system (joystick, monitor, mouse, speaker, etc.)
| you literally need a "human in the loop" to provide feedback.
|
| Additionally, many edge-cases in driving hardware can
| irrevocably destroy it and even a domain-specific agent
| wouldn't have any physics context for the underlying risks.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _someone would have already have replaced those closed source
| Nvidia drivers that have firmware blobs_
|
| This isn't quite a fair example, these are so massively
| complex with code path built explicitly for so many
| individual applications. Nvidia cards are nearly a complete
| SoC.
|
| Though then again, coding agents 1 year ago of the full
| autonomous sort were barely months old, and now here we are
| in one year. So, maybe soon this could be realistic? Hard to
| say. Even if code agents can do it, it still costs $ via
| tokens and api calls. But a year ago it would have cost me at
| least a few dollars and a lot more time to do things I get
| done now in a prompt and 10 minutes of Opus in a sandbox.
| pmontra wrote:
| I'm not so sure that Nouveau is slower than the proprietary
| Nvidia driver. I didn't run benchmarks on my personal use
| case but my subjective experience is that Nouveau might be
| faster. It's a Debian 11, X11, NVIDIA driver vs Debian 13,
| X11, Nouveau on the same laptop with a Quadro K1100mq. The
| desktop of the newer system seems to be faster. Of course it
| could be the sum of the individual improvements of kernel,
| GNOME, etc. I only move windows around my desktop, no games,
| so it's a very limited scenario.
| ahoka wrote:
| That pesky GPL does not stop us anymore, cool.
| petcat wrote:
| What would the GPL have to do with this?
| diath wrote:
| The primary reason why it worked is because Claude could rip
| off the Linux driver. Without any prior work to rely on, how
| will the AI figure out proprietary hardware?
| rustyhancock wrote:
| I haven't read the article but my first question was, install
| wifibox?
|
| It's a bhyve VM running alpine Linux and you pass through
| your WiFi adaptor and get a bridge out on the freebsd host.
| WD-42 wrote:
| Literally explained in the post, that's why you read first.
| bootwoot wrote:
| True. But also -- how do humans do it? There are docs and
| there's other similar driver code. I wouldn't be surprised if
| Claude could build new driver code sight-unseen, given the
| appropriate resources
| chrisjj wrote:
| [delayed]
| 05 wrote:
| - have AI write a windows filter driver to capture all
| hardware communications
|
| - have AI reverse engineer Windows WiFi driver and make a
| crude prototype
|
| - have AI compare registers captured by filter driver with
| linux driver version and iterate until they match (or at
| least functional tests pass)
|
| not exactly rocket surgery, and windows device drivers
| generally don't have DRM/obfuscation, so reverse engineering
| them isn't hard for LLMs.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| [delayed]
| wingmanjd wrote:
| So we send an AI agent to the French cafe instead of us?
|
| https://download.samba.org/pub/tridge/misc/french_cafe.txt
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Trial and error?
|
| Just like it does when given an existing GPL'd source and
| dealing with its hallucinations, the agent could be operated
| on a black box (or a binary Windows driver and a
| disassembly)?
|
| The GPL code helped here but as long as the agent can run in
| a loop and test its work against a piece of hardware, I don't
| see why it couldn't do the same without any code given enough
| time?
| WD-42 wrote:
| He also mentioned it took 2 months. I'm actually wondering
| how long it would take to do the Linux to BSD port by
| eyeball, or at least ai assisted. Probably not that much
| longer? I guess it depends on wall time vs real time.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Maybe one day, but it doesn't look like we are very close yet.
| From the OP article, they handed it the working linux driver
| and asked it to just make this FreeBSD compatible, but it could
| not. Looks like it took OP a significant amount of work over 2
| months to get something that seems to work.
|
| What is interesting is it seems like the work resembles regular
| management, asking for a written specification, proof reading,
| etc.
| lazide wrote:
| Aka, the hard part.
| plagiarist wrote:
| To make these things work you do need to write a spec and
| figure out what unit tests will prove it actually did what
| you want. Even then it will take a bunch of shortcuts so it's
| best if you're a domain expert anyway.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Drivers can be anywhere from so trivial you can throw it
| together by hand in an afternoon to so complex that it requires
| an entire engineering team six months of concentrated effort.
| octoberfranklin wrote:
| Hardware driver bugs frequently manifest as concurrency
| flakiness or heisenbugs.
|
| AI is notoriously bad at dealing with bugs that only cause
| problems every few weeks.
| h4kunamata wrote:
| The Linux community has been doing this since forever. Old
| hardware is fully supported on Linux, unless of course, you are a
| macOS fanboy because Apple will do everything to preventing you
| from owning your hardware, including locking hardware ID via
| firmware.
|
| This isn't a news to be in here.
| johnjames87 wrote:
| what a salty comment
| iknowstuff wrote:
| I don't think Apple is any different than any other vendor who
| doesn't bother releasing Linux drivers? support for most
| devices depends on the community creating them no?
|
| If you're a macOS fanboy presumably you don't care about Linux
| support.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| > any different than any other vendor who doesn't bother
| releasing Linux drivers
|
| Which has dwindled in number so much as to practically not be
| problem anymore. There is even a Linux-only or Linux-first
| attitude with some vendors.
|
| Buying Apple to run Linux borders on stupidity nowadays
| because of the vast better options fit for purpose.
|
| Like buying a gasoline vehicle then complaining it can't run
| on diesel. It wasn't designed to.
| h4kunamata wrote:
| THANK YOU!!!!!!
| h4kunamata wrote:
| >I don't think Apple is any different than any other vendor
|
| Read my previous comment again!! If you buy a genuine display
| and install it, it won't work because Apple locks the
| hardware ID via firmware. It must be installed by Apple only.
|
| No other vendor does that, the Linux community always found
| its way to get a non-supported hardware working.
|
| Windows until recently with the AI slope, was the only major
| OS used everywhere so why many vendors only have Windows
| driver, I understand theirs "Why bother?"
| kombine wrote:
| Most vendors are different from Apple in that they don't have
| their own OS and software ecosystem that is in direct
| competition with Linux.
| Joyfield wrote:
| AIs being able to do this has not been around "since forever"
| though.
| ulf-77723 wrote:
| Software is still eating the world, now even faster. I wonder how
| soon we will adapt to this new situation where software is vibe
| coded for anything and make use of this software without caution
| as expressed in the article.
|
| For most people the main difference will be: Will it run and
| solve my problem? Soon we will see malware being put into vibe
| coded software - who will wants to check every commit for write-
| only software?
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| I think in the future (in 10 years?) we are going to see a lot
| of disposable/throwaway software. I don't know, imagine this: I
| need to buy tickets for a concert. I ask my AI agent that I
| want tickets. The agent creates code on the fly and uses it to
| purchase my tickets. The code could be simple curl command, or
| a full app with nice ui/ux. As a user I don't need to see the
| code.
|
| If I want to buy more tickets the same day, the ai agent will
| likely reuse the same code. But if i buy tickets again in one
| year, the agent will likely rebuild the code to adjust to the
| new API version the ticket company now offers. Seems wasteful
| but it's more dynamic. Vendors only need to provide raw APIs
| and your agent can create the ui experience you want. In that
| regard nobody but the company that owns your agent can inject
| malware into the software you use. Some software will last more
| than others (e.g., the music player your agent provided won't
| probably be rebuilt unless you want a new look and feel or
| extra functionality). I think we'll adopt the "cattle, not
| pets" approach to software too.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| This is exciting! This sounds like a great application because
| it's mostly tedious work to adjust an existing driver to another
| device.
| b8 wrote:
| It'd be nice to have drivers for newer Mac's for a better Asahi
| Linux experience. Good use of AI imo.
| Gigachad wrote:
| AI wouldn't work here. The OP task was converting one open
| source driver in to another one for FreeBSD. Since Mac doesn't
| have open source drivers to start with, a person still has to
| do the ground research. At least until you can somehow give the
| AI the ability to fully interact with the computer at the
| lowest levels and observe hardware connected to it.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| This is like complaining Delorean didn't make spare parts for
| your homemade time machine.
| integralpilot wrote:
| We don't use AI to help write code due to copyright concerns,
| it's against our policy. We obviously need to be very careful
| with what we're doing, and we can't be sure it hasn't seen
| Apple docs or RE'ed Apple binaries etc (which we have very
| careful clean-room policies on) in its training data. It also
| can't be guaranteed that the generated code is GPL+MIT
| compatible (as it may draw inspiration from other GPL only
| drivers in the same subsystems) but we wish to use GPL+MIT to
| enable BSD to take inspiration from the drivers.
| midtake wrote:
| This used to be more common right? Back in the winmodem days?
| octoberfranklin wrote:
| That AI was trained on the GPLv2 Linux source code, which _does_
| have a driver for your Wi-Fi.
|
| How is this not copyright laundering?
| irishcoffee wrote:
| This is really neat, I'm glad it worked.
|
| This is atrocious C code.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| [delayed]
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(page generated 2026-02-23 23:00 UTC)