Realtek employees leak OS X WiFi drivers for the MSI U100 Wind

Although not officially posted on its website (yet), Realtek has reportedly been sending out an OS X driver for its RTL8187SE wireless card found in MSI's U100 Wind. Various posters at the MSI Wind forums say they were sent the driver from Realtek employees after contacting the company, which invariably led to the drivers being uploaded to RapidShare for everyone to grab. Apparently the card isn't recognized as an Airport device, and forum users are suggesting to instead get the Real WLAN Client Utility. Supposedly, Realtek employees stated (via email) that the driver would be released before December 15, though according to some posters, the company has already missed a November date -- so if you want the driver now, your best bet is to start scavenging the forums.

[Via GottaBeMobile]

[frauhottelmann @ Dec 15th 2008 10:56AM]

Mh great for them but I need 4965agn. So please Intel employees get them out...unintentionally...accidentally...

[cg0def @ Dec 15th 2008 11:55AM]

not gonna happen. Apple is too valuable to Intel for a screw up that big. Plus there is a thing called non-compete agreement so Apple will sue Intel's a** faster than the file can hit RapidShare.

Oh and as far as Realtek goes, they're about to find out what american layers can do.

[Major4Play @ Dec 15th 2008 12:01PM]

@cg0def

What climbed up your ass ? Realtek can develop any driver they want for their hardware, it is not against the law.
I think Apple sits pretty low in a list of Intel's customers so calm down ,anyone can develop drivers for their hardware to function with Mac OS otherwise what's the point of owning one ? ( I own 2)

Seriously if you don't work for Apple or own a bucketload of shares you need to be medicated you are worshipping a consumer electronics company like a religion, just give them your whole weekly pay check and wait for a relative to kidnap you for deprogramming.

[barleyguy @ Dec 15th 2008 1:16PM]

The Intel 4965 has full open source Linux and Unix drivers. It shouldn't be too hard for someone to port them to Mac OSX.

This Realtek driver was a couple of days too late for me. I just bought a Broadcom 1390 on ebay (generic Airport card). It was only $9.00 though, so the time saved in having a natively supported card is probably worth the money.

[skilletcooked @ Dec 15th 2008 2:36PM]

Could try these drivers:

http://code.google.com/p/iwidarwin/

[barleyguy @ Dec 15th 2008 2:39PM]

Funny. Like I said, shouldn't be too hard to port the open source drivers. Which is exactly what someone did at that link.

[frauhottelmann @ Dec 15th 2008 2:38PM]

lol, I know about those drivers, but all they might do is detect unsecured networks. Nothing more, no connection to anything. And the author was absent from insanelymac for a long time...

[Sk8rman @ Dec 15th 2008 7:09PM]

@skilletcooked

those drivers have been on the scene for ages, and trust me, they don't currently work

they are in development, and the developer's laptop with intel wireless broke, so development is currently halted

[Marcus Roberto @ Dec 15th 2008 11:32AM]

And I'm waiting for a WiFi driver that works for Acer Aspire One under Mac OS X. Please Engadget, let us know about these leaks.

[Canoo @ Dec 15th 2008 2:18PM]

just swap out the card. $15 on ebay for a Dell 1490 wireless mini pci-e card.

[emax @ Dec 15th 2008 11:03AM]

so a company released & DEVELOPED a driver for an unsupported platform? lets start the rumor mill, "MAYBE APPLE IS DEVELOPING A SUBNOTEBOOK WITH SAME INTERNALS AS MSI WIND!"

[OSnix*-geek @ Dec 15th 2008 11:16AM]

they won't do that, but they might actually consider oem'ing it so they can try and make a buck, and prove how people are willing to pay more over a win/Lin vanilla box than one running osx. Not going to lie if they actually released some other boxes from dell, asus, msi, hp, etc they'd be a much bigger target on my radar especially a midtower desktop. We can dream. I don't think they'd release a rebranded and/or reboxed (shell) from any manufacturer.

[Rollins @ Dec 15th 2008 11:15AM]

It is rather curious, though, isn't it? Unless the developers had spare time on their hands or the OS X-using Wind user base is larger than I thought, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[oZ @ Dec 15th 2008 12:00PM]

It was probably an easy port. They already provide drivers for USB wireless sticks with Realtek chipsets, so it's a matter of making a PCI matching driver out of an existing driver. Probably took an engineer under a day to do, it's just a change in how the driver matches and handles interrupts out of IOKit.

[Marko @ Dec 15th 2008 11:07AM]

Me wants wlan osx drivers for me eee

[Chris @ Dec 15th 2008 11:10AM]

s/had/hate

[Mac boy @ Dec 15th 2008 11:11AM]

Steve make me a netbook

[Steve @ Dec 15th 2008 11:38AM]

Sure here you go! That will be 800$ thank you.

[rock99rock @ Dec 15th 2008 12:35PM]

you forgot the 1 in front of the 8.

[Sk8rman @ Dec 15th 2008 7:11PM]

And the 9 in front of the 1 in front of the 8

[Zt @ Dec 16th 2008 6:14AM]

"And the 9 in front of the 1 in front of the 8"

He said netbook, not super computer.

[Fred @ Dec 15th 2008 11:36AM]

How does this NOT piss off Apple? This is realtek essentially condoning hackintoshing on the Wind...

[John @ Dec 15th 2008 11:39AM]

Good thing MSI isn't in the business of operating system politics.

[TMM @ Dec 15th 2008 11:50AM]

Agreed.

Seems Apple is right about the "Jon Does" in their Lawsuit against Psystar.
How can a company make device drivers for an OS that isn't allowed to run on their hardware.

The whole deal with the "efforts" to get OSX to run on non-Apple hardware is:
1. Windows is a catastrophy.
2. The PC market is overstaturated and there's no way to differenciate, because everybody runs Windows.

So here is the deal: instead of actually putting effort and innovation into a creating an alternative to Windows on their own, I think a substantial number of PC manufacturers are discussing how to get OS X on their computers.
And since it is illegal, because it belongs to Apple and they have the right to do anything they want with it, a small number of companies will try to make money of this grey market.

It's a frigging shame.

They are adding value to their - else shitty - computers by letting them run Mac OS, which they didn't create and I guess only a small number of Hackintoshers are actually paying for.

That stinks from here to Tasmania.

[Major4Play @ Dec 15th 2008 12:09PM]

Noone understands the law.
When you say "How can a company make device drivers for an OS that isn't allowed to run on their hardware."

Isn't allowed ? isn't allowed by their EULA which is a contract between Apple and the consumer opening their boxed copy of leopard. Breaking a contract is not illegal, but the company does have the right (under the terms of their contract) to sue for damages.
Realtek don't sign on for Apple's EULA the person buying Mac OS does. Got it ? Realtek make chipsets for wifi cards, a few usb ones work with macs, easy driver to adapt eh ?

Isn't it about time Mac zealots realise Apple are not getting screwed by this YOU ARE, it happens because the mac you spend your money on USES EXACTLY THE SAME CHIPSETS AS PCS. Until Apple goes back down the non-X86 route this problem will only get worse. Steve just wants to hold on to those hardware profits for as long as possible until the market forces a PC launch of Mac OsX

[Adam M @ Dec 15th 2008 1:33PM]

@Major4Play@
"USES EXACTLY THE SAME CHIPSETS AS PCS"
Maybe someone should take an intro to hardware class as there are a range of chipsets. Lower end machines, like crappy $300 dells are not "EXACTLY THE SAME CHIPSETS AS" Apple uses in their computers. They are the low end crappy version of the chipset. What your saying is an engine from Ford is the same engine from BMW because they both use gasoline to power them.

How are Mac users getting screwed? We pay more to get more. Apple does not sell "low end piece of crap" computers. The sell mid range to high range personal computers. Try to spec out a Dell with the same specs as a Macbook or iMac and you will see either they are the same price or the Dell is more!

[Shaggy @ Dec 15th 2008 3:43PM]

Adam M, you're wrong. "Try to spec out a Dell with the same specs as a Macbook or iMac and you will see either they are the same price or the Dell is more!" Did you actually try that before typing your silly post? I got a Dell desktop with a 22inch lcd, 4gb of ram, and a dedicated video card for under a $1000. Please show me that on an iMac. And Macbook specs are a joke. 2gb of ram is the standard on those, with all pc competitors are offering 3-4gb on much cheapter notebooks. So really, you're argument is totally wrong. You could argue that you can't get the same design quality, or OS, but you can't argue on Ram, Processor, and Video cards, because that is where Apple eats you guys.

[Fred @ Dec 15th 2008 4:30PM]

Apple does make "crappy low end computers", they are called the Mac Mini

[Steven Merrill @ Dec 15th 2008 9:40PM]

This isn't necessarily only used for Hackintoshes. I needed to get an extra WiFi adapter for my Mac so that I could use an external antenna with it, and I chose a product by RokLand with an underlying Realtek chipset.

The software works decently (and under Leopard,) but hasn't been updated for some time and will occasionally lock up. As a legit user of their products, I'll appreciate any update to their drivers.

[Vanillacide @ Dec 15th 2008 12:55PM]

Come on Apple, open it up ... let me run OSX on my own hardware. ;)

Either that, or let me put whatever GPU I see fit in a tower or mini-tower system; SLI/Crossfire support too. :)

[Sean666 @ Dec 15th 2008 2:15PM]

"Mr Steve Job, tear down this wall!"

[BrokenMonkey @ Dec 15th 2008 12:14PM]

I've already switched out my Realtek card for a Broadcom a/g/n card (Airport Extreme) that shows up as an Airport card and works great, but for some reason it doesn't want to do more than 802.11b in Vista. What I'd really like though is a driver for the sound card that lets the Headphone and Microphone ports work under OS X, since the internal speakers are crap and I'd like to use headphones without buying a USB sound card. Then everything internal would work great under OS X and it would be the ultimate OS X netbook.

[sandwormblues @ Dec 15th 2008 12:27PM]

It's likely that Apple is secretly pleased. The natural end result is more customers for OS X (whether on a hackintosh or otherwise) which invariably results in more marketshare for Apple, less for Windoze.

Personally I think in the long run both OS's are doomed because Linux is just plain better. Apple has the upper hand because they develop so much more than just a lousy OS, but will MIcrosoft be able to survive on X-Box revenues?

[Teve Torbes @ Dec 15th 2008 9:01PM]

as

[Cameron @ Dec 15th 2008 3:23PM]

Is it really that hard to figure out why they leaked these drivers? MSI & Realtek make money selling hardware. If they can make their hardware more appealing to users (in this case by making it appealing to people trying to shoehorn OS X onto non-Apple hardware), they will do it. Especially in a case like this where it was just a small effort to port.

And why doesn't Apple open up OS X to non-Apple hardware? Because they make their money off the hardware (big profit margins) and to test and provide support for non-Apple hardware would be a huge undertaking (just look at Microsoft's WHQL testing, and even with all that work, Windows still has issues with some hardware).

Oh, and why doesn't Apple make a netbook? The profit margins are tiny in that segment. Not to mention introducing a low end device like that would dilute their brand image. The only reason could possibly want to introduce a netbook would be to grow their market share, but thats not really a problem for them right now. They're growing slowly, but surely without a netbook and making fat profits off of 'luxury' hardware. For Apple their is no reason to fix something that isn't broken.

[Shaggy @ Dec 15th 2008 3:44PM]

Oh and I had a quad-core processor on it, was the Q6600, which was decent at the time.

[Shaggy @ Dec 15th 2008 3:45PM]

That was a reply to Adam M's post...I had hit reply, but something must have gone wrong I guess.

[ant @ Dec 15th 2008 4:35PM]

They aren't TRULY being released for the OSx86 Project. They plainly posted that out of context. I've been using that WLAN Application for quite sometime(it is a bit inconvenient because it is recognized as Ethernet not Airport). Realtek uses that same WiFi config on many lower-end third USB WiFi cards(that are correctly Mac compatible) and that WiFi utility is compatible with the MSI Wind.

[aphonymous @ Dec 18th 2008 8:07AM]

sorry guys to break it down for you, but i think you are alll missing the big point here:

OSX can't legally run in non-apple hardware, but (here it goes) that doesn't apply to darwin kernel, patched or not. since the drive .kext plug directly into the kernel, is not legally breaking any new boundaries.

surprised?