Ubuntu irritation
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I installed Ubuntu (Dapper Drake) onto my old laptop to see what it was like. It has no network connections built in so I wanted to use a Wireless PCMCIA card to communicate with the outside world. Ubuntu does not recognise the card natively, but I found some instructions of how to get it to work.... However, to follow the instructions you need an internet connection because it uses some commands that download and install things before installing the driver. When I did this under windows it just WORKED! Plug card in - Found new hardware - Installing driver - Set wireless password - Working internet connection! No faffing about on forums, no worrying about if the card is a V2 made in China or the V2 made in Taiwan model (because they actually use different chip sets, so you need to install different things). "Linux for humans!" they call it! This human is pissed off at the amount of work required just to get a damned network card to work. If Linux really is to take over from windows it needs to be plug-and-play. No messing around with command line rubbish and updating config files manually to get a network card to work. Rant over - normal service is resumed....
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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I installed Ubuntu (Dapper Drake) onto my old laptop to see what it was like. It has no network connections built in so I wanted to use a Wireless PCMCIA card to communicate with the outside world. Ubuntu does not recognise the card natively, but I found some instructions of how to get it to work.... However, to follow the instructions you need an internet connection because it uses some commands that download and install things before installing the driver. When I did this under windows it just WORKED! Plug card in - Found new hardware - Installing driver - Set wireless password - Working internet connection! No faffing about on forums, no worrying about if the card is a V2 made in China or the V2 made in Taiwan model (because they actually use different chip sets, so you need to install different things). "Linux for humans!" they call it! This human is pissed off at the amount of work required just to get a damned network card to work. If Linux really is to take over from windows it needs to be plug-and-play. No messing around with command line rubbish and updating config files manually to get a network card to work. Rant over - normal service is resumed....
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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You know Linux is a hobbist OS. In other words, people install it because they want to try out something other than windows and have some free time to play around with it. I assume that's why you installed it.
ed welch wrote:
You know Linux is a hobbist OS
Given that there is a Server edition I had hoped it would be more than that.
ed welch wrote:
In other words, people install it because they want to try out something other than windows
Which is why I installed it on my old laptop
ed welch wrote:
and have some free time to play around with it.
Which is what I want to do. But without wireless connectivity I cannot play with it very much. Messing around with NDIS drivers is not my idea of fun - if you think it is then each to their own I suppose.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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With the attitude of the kernel developers towards binary-only, no-source drivers, this will simply not happen. I believe the hardware manufacturers have every right to keep their source private. The kernel developers consider the kernel 'tainted' if there is any non-GPL (or non-GPL-compatible) code loaded into the kernel, and will not investigate crashes - see here[^]. Of course the manufacturers have a general problem towards any 'minority' platform - see the continued poor state of Windows x64 drivers, where if they're actually coding the 32-bit driver correctly, a 64-bit driver should be mostly just a recompile.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Mike Dimmick wrote:
I believe the hardware manufacturers have every right to keep their source private.
Damn right. Why, i suspect that if the source for HP's LaserJet Win9x PCL drivers were ever released, the poor souls who wrote it would need protective custody. The jeering, OMG, think of the jeering! :omg:
every night, i kneel at the foot of my bed and thank the Great Overseeing Politicians for protecting my freedoms by reducing their number, as if they were deer in a state park. -- Chris Losinger, Online Poker Players?
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It is a Netgear WG511 v2 (made in China)
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
I think I have the same one on my Fedora box. Are you using the acx100 driver ? It works fine for me.
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I installed Ubuntu (Dapper Drake) onto my old laptop to see what it was like. It has no network connections built in so I wanted to use a Wireless PCMCIA card to communicate with the outside world. Ubuntu does not recognise the card natively, but I found some instructions of how to get it to work.... However, to follow the instructions you need an internet connection because it uses some commands that download and install things before installing the driver. When I did this under windows it just WORKED! Plug card in - Found new hardware - Installing driver - Set wireless password - Working internet connection! No faffing about on forums, no worrying about if the card is a V2 made in China or the V2 made in Taiwan model (because they actually use different chip sets, so you need to install different things). "Linux for humans!" they call it! This human is pissed off at the amount of work required just to get a damned network card to work. If Linux really is to take over from windows it needs to be plug-and-play. No messing around with command line rubbish and updating config files manually to get a network card to work. Rant over - normal service is resumed....
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
"Linux for humans!" they call it! This human is pissed off at the amount of work required just to get a damned network card to work. If Linux really is to take over from windows it needs to be plug-and-play. No messing around with command line rubbish and updating config files manually to get a network card to work.
True enough. However, step off the beaten path of new, brand-name hardware, or old hardware with new OS, and things get bad all over. Heck, sometimes this is where Linux really shines - the insistence on having source for drivers means they can be updated to work with new versions of the OS, providing people are still using the hardware. Meanwhile, i have piles, literally piles of hardware that is useless to me because either there are no drivers, there are drivers but they crash the versions of Windows i use, or conflict with other drivers or... If you believe RMS, the Free Software movement was instigated by the frustrations caused by bad, closed-source printer drivers... I have no trouble believing that.
every night, i kneel at the foot of my bed and thank the Great Overseeing Politicians for protecting my freedoms by reducing their number, as if they were deer in a state park. -- Chris Losinger, Online Poker Players?
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Mike Dimmick wrote:
I believe the hardware manufacturers have every right to keep their source private.
Damn right. Why, i suspect that if the source for HP's LaserJet Win9x PCL drivers were ever released, the poor souls who wrote it would need protective custody. The jeering, OMG, think of the jeering! :omg:
every night, i kneel at the foot of my bed and thank the Great Overseeing Politicians for protecting my freedoms by reducing their number, as if they were deer in a state park. -- Chris Losinger, Online Poker Players?
I can't imagine that the LaserJet drivers could be any worse then the DeskJet drivers. It's a scary thought spending that much time cursing them, and they were the stable ones. :~
Using the GridView is like trying to explain to someone else how to move a third person's hands in order to tie your shoelaces for you. -Chris Maunder
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ed welch wrote:
You know Linux is a hobbist OS
Given that there is a Server edition I had hoped it would be more than that.
ed welch wrote:
In other words, people install it because they want to try out something other than windows
Which is why I installed it on my old laptop
ed welch wrote:
and have some free time to play around with it.
Which is what I want to do. But without wireless connectivity I cannot play with it very much. Messing around with NDIS drivers is not my idea of fun - if you think it is then each to their own I suppose.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
or maybe you just didn't have enough patence. I don't think anybody is under any delusion that Linux is more difficult to use. I was prepared for that and went through a lot of hair pulling as well trying to get it to work, but I didn't go posting flamebait on the forums the first technical problem that I came across.
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I installed Ubuntu (Dapper Drake) onto my old laptop to see what it was like. It has no network connections built in so I wanted to use a Wireless PCMCIA card to communicate with the outside world. Ubuntu does not recognise the card natively, but I found some instructions of how to get it to work.... However, to follow the instructions you need an internet connection because it uses some commands that download and install things before installing the driver. When I did this under windows it just WORKED! Plug card in - Found new hardware - Installing driver - Set wireless password - Working internet connection! No faffing about on forums, no worrying about if the card is a V2 made in China or the V2 made in Taiwan model (because they actually use different chip sets, so you need to install different things). "Linux for humans!" they call it! This human is pissed off at the amount of work required just to get a damned network card to work. If Linux really is to take over from windows it needs to be plug-and-play. No messing around with command line rubbish and updating config files manually to get a network card to work. Rant over - normal service is resumed....
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
hey colin it is different and it can be frustrating but thats mostly cos its a completely different mindset to the windows one ... ive seen many people have complete nightmare experiences trying to get some old or non-standard piece of hardware working with windows ... there are very good reasons why things need to be gpl to be included in the kernel and those reasons are valid it seems it didnt take you too long to actually get things working so for a free os and desktop env that isnt too bad no? i was also frustrated with linux for the first period of time i used it because i didnt have all the knowledge i have with windows and it made me feel less in control of things ... once you get the hang of linux and you realise that there is a solution to almost every issue you come up against you get less bothered by them also these days i make sure the hardware im going to buy works well with linux before i buy it ... maybe if more people did that the manufacturers would include better support for linux
"there is no spoon"
{some projects} {about me} -
hey colin it is different and it can be frustrating but thats mostly cos its a completely different mindset to the windows one ... ive seen many people have complete nightmare experiences trying to get some old or non-standard piece of hardware working with windows ... there are very good reasons why things need to be gpl to be included in the kernel and those reasons are valid it seems it didnt take you too long to actually get things working so for a free os and desktop env that isnt too bad no? i was also frustrated with linux for the first period of time i used it because i didnt have all the knowledge i have with windows and it made me feel less in control of things ... once you get the hang of linux and you realise that there is a solution to almost every issue you come up against you get less bothered by them also these days i make sure the hardware im going to buy works well with linux before i buy it ... maybe if more people did that the manufacturers would include better support for linux
"there is no spoon"
{some projects} {about me}l a u r e n wrote:
also these days i make sure the hardware im going to buy works well with linux before i buy it
Quite the good idea, that. Of course, it's extra work, seeing as you don't need to do that when you run Windows. Oh, wait... :rolleyes:
every night, i kneel at the foot of my bed and thank the Great Overseeing Politicians for protecting my freedoms by reducing their number, as if they were deer in a state park. -- Chris Losinger, Online Poker Players?
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With the attitude of the kernel developers towards binary-only, no-source drivers, this will simply not happen. I believe the hardware manufacturers have every right to keep their source private. The kernel developers consider the kernel 'tainted' if there is any non-GPL (or non-GPL-compatible) code loaded into the kernel, and will not investigate crashes - see here[^]. Of course the manufacturers have a general problem towards any 'minority' platform - see the continued poor state of Windows x64 drivers, where if they're actually coding the 32-bit driver correctly, a 64-bit driver should be mostly just a recompile.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Mike Dimmick wrote:
I believe the hardware manufacturers have every right to keep their source private.
Why is that actually so (well of course everybody has the *right* to keep private what he wants to keep private)? I completely understand software developers to keep there source closed - they need to make a living like everyone else after all. But hardware manufacturers are selling hardware, not drivers. And if I buy their hardware I as the consumer have every right to get a functioning driver with it I would assume. And if that is helped by having open-source drivers, then why not? I have no technical knowledge on this matter so I don't know, maybe opening the driver source would give away too much of the hardware architecture to the competition?? Just a thought Martin
"When your own heart asks - how will you respond?" Gosen waka shū "Situation normal - all fu***d up" Illuminatus! My photos on flickr
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Mike Dimmick wrote:
I believe the hardware manufacturers have every right to keep their source private.
Why is that actually so (well of course everybody has the *right* to keep private what he wants to keep private)? I completely understand software developers to keep there source closed - they need to make a living like everyone else after all. But hardware manufacturers are selling hardware, not drivers. And if I buy their hardware I as the consumer have every right to get a functioning driver with it I would assume. And if that is helped by having open-source drivers, then why not? I have no technical knowledge on this matter so I don't know, maybe opening the driver source would give away too much of the hardware architecture to the competition?? Just a thought Martin
"When your own heart asks - how will you respond?" Gosen waka shū "Situation normal - all fu***d up" Illuminatus! My photos on flickr
Martin Häsemeyer wrote:
And if that is helped by having open-source drivers, then why not?
Because someone might recompile after removing all those inner-loop calls to
WasteInkThenCorruptMemory(), and that'd seriously hurt profit margins... :rolleyes: (but yeah, keeping proprietary tech secret is usually the answer. How much of that is complete bullshit is anyone's guess...)every night, i kneel at the foot of my bed and thank the Great Overseeing Politicians for protecting my freedoms by reducing their number, as if they were deer in a state park. -- Chris Losinger, Online Poker Players?
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Mike Dimmick wrote:
I believe the hardware manufacturers have every right to keep their source private.
Why is that actually so (well of course everybody has the *right* to keep private what he wants to keep private)? I completely understand software developers to keep there source closed - they need to make a living like everyone else after all. But hardware manufacturers are selling hardware, not drivers. And if I buy their hardware I as the consumer have every right to get a functioning driver with it I would assume. And if that is helped by having open-source drivers, then why not? I have no technical knowledge on this matter so I don't know, maybe opening the driver source would give away too much of the hardware architecture to the competition?? Just a thought Martin
"When your own heart asks - how will you respond?" Gosen waka shū "Situation normal - all fu***d up" Illuminatus! My photos on flickr
Martin Häsemeyer wrote:
opening the driver source would give away too much of the hardware architecture to the competition
At a guess, that would sound the most likely reason. Part of their hardware product's performance/features may be linked to the software that runs it as well as the hardware itself.
Ðavid Wulff Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen (video)
10 PRINT 'HELLO MAINTAINER: GOTO HELL -
hey colin it is different and it can be frustrating but thats mostly cos its a completely different mindset to the windows one ... ive seen many people have complete nightmare experiences trying to get some old or non-standard piece of hardware working with windows ... there are very good reasons why things need to be gpl to be included in the kernel and those reasons are valid it seems it didnt take you too long to actually get things working so for a free os and desktop env that isnt too bad no? i was also frustrated with linux for the first period of time i used it because i didnt have all the knowledge i have with windows and it made me feel less in control of things ... once you get the hang of linux and you realise that there is a solution to almost every issue you come up against you get less bothered by them also these days i make sure the hardware im going to buy works well with linux before i buy it ... maybe if more people did that the manufacturers would include better support for linux
"there is no spoon"
{some projects} {about me}l a u r e n wrote:
it seems it didnt take you too long to actually get things working so for a free os and desktop env that isnt too bad no?
Well, no. I still don't have wireless access - I have a wired connection at the moment. It currently reports that my NDIS driver is invalid for the Wireless. I have partly given up for the moment - I may return to it in a few days when I get more time. However, at the moment I feel I've wasted almost an entire day trying to figure this thing out.
l a u r e n wrote:
once you get the hang of linux and you realise that there is a solution to almost every issue you come up against you get less bothered by them
I realise that - I was just having a rant because I just needed to vent my frustrations. I expect that things will get better. It seems that everything else runs just nicely - and the inclusion of Open Office with the OS is very nice (I would expect that Microsoft would be hauled in to court if they tried that trick). I expect that in the future I will write some code for Linux. Not that I'm any less of a fan of .NET (Just got Team System installed at work and I'm really loving it), just that I realise that it is good to broaden one's horizens from time-to-time.
l a u r e n wrote:
also these days i make sure the hardware im going to buy works well with linux before i buy it ... maybe if more people did that the manufacturers would include better support for linux
Well, my primary reason for the Netgear stuff was that it was recommended by the people I get my ADSL broadband from. I've had hassle in the past with that sort of thing, so I figured that if I buy the equipment they recommend and I have problems then they can't wriggle out of it because they recommended it. I hadn't installed Linux at that point so I didn't think of the Linux support aspect at the same time. Do you have any recommendations for a Wireless PCMCIA card for a 6 year old laptop running Ubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS)? (Or do you know of a good site that makes these recommendations?).
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you in
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I think I have the same one on my Fedora box. Are you using the acx100 driver ? It works fine for me.
Vivek Rajan wrote:
Are you using the acx100 driver ?
I'm using an NDIS wrapper with the Windows XP driver like the instructions told me. However, it doesn't seem to work. Can you send me a link to that driver? Perhaps it might work for me if you are using it with the same network card.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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or maybe you just didn't have enough patence. I don't think anybody is under any delusion that Linux is more difficult to use. I was prepared for that and went through a lot of hair pulling as well trying to get it to work, but I didn't go posting flamebait on the forums the first technical problem that I came across.
ed welch wrote:
or maybe you just didn't have enough patence. I don't think anybody is under any delusion that Linux is more difficult to use. I was prepared for that and went through a lot of hair pulling as well trying to get it to work, but I didn't go posting flamebait on the forums the first technical problem that I came across.
Yes, I'm frustrated - I don't deny that nor do I applogise for that. And yes, it was the first technical problem I had. But I did, as I always do, try to solve the problem for a reasonable length of time before posting about it! There is very little official documentation. There is an "official" wiki (not a bad thing) but all it did was point to some forums, which linked to other forums, which linked to various downloads which didn't work. The forum posts were poorly structured and inconsistent. They didn't explain how to troubleshoot the problems (as the OP didn't have the problems that I was having, it wasn't discussed). Compare that to an experience I had with a Windows Installer problem I had recently. I searched with the error message and I found a few promising leads almost instantly. They didn't actually solve my problem, but one did mention about why the problem existed. This got me thinking, and I tried something else that wasn't mentioned, but could have been related - And it worked. The difference? The answer to the questions "WHY?" and "HOW?" Why do you have to do this? How does it work? Why does it work that way? If I knew how it hangs together, and how it works then I might be able to troubleshoot on my own.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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I installed Ubuntu (Dapper Drake) onto my old laptop to see what it was like. It has no network connections built in so I wanted to use a Wireless PCMCIA card to communicate with the outside world. Ubuntu does not recognise the card natively, but I found some instructions of how to get it to work.... However, to follow the instructions you need an internet connection because it uses some commands that download and install things before installing the driver. When I did this under windows it just WORKED! Plug card in - Found new hardware - Installing driver - Set wireless password - Working internet connection! No faffing about on forums, no worrying about if the card is a V2 made in China or the V2 made in Taiwan model (because they actually use different chip sets, so you need to install different things). "Linux for humans!" they call it! This human is pissed off at the amount of work required just to get a damned network card to work. If Linux really is to take over from windows it needs to be plug-and-play. No messing around with command line rubbish and updating config files manually to get a network card to work. Rant over - normal service is resumed....
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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You're failing to recognize that the manufacturer wrote the windows drivers for the card, whereas volunteers must write the drivers for linux. If you want to blame anyone for your troubles, it is certainly the manufacturers fault.
krism42 wrote:
You're failing to recognize that the manufacturer wrote the windows drivers for the card
Curiously - If I look at the drivers in my Windows system the vast majority were written by Microsoft. Anyway, there is this thing that I've found called an NDIS wrapper that supposedly allows you to use existing Windows XP network drivers in Linux. Very clever - but I guess I didn't install the EXACT correct driver for the card - something Windows would have warned me about before trying to install it. (It all seems to come down to whether the card was manufactured in China or Taiwan - which I really don't understand)
krism42 wrote:
whereas volunteers must write the drivers for linux
Not necessarily. As another poster already mentioned. Ubuntu has paid developers writing for it. People actually paid to write Ubuntu Linux.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
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Vivek Rajan wrote:
Are you using the acx100 driver ?
I'm using an NDIS wrapper with the Windows XP driver like the instructions told me. However, it doesn't seem to work. Can you send me a link to that driver? Perhaps it might work for me if you are using it with the same network card.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog
Colin, Here is the link I followed. http://www.houseofcraig.net/acx100_howto.php[^] Good luck.
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ed welch wrote:
or maybe you just didn't have enough patence. I don't think anybody is under any delusion that Linux is more difficult to use. I was prepared for that and went through a lot of hair pulling as well trying to get it to work, but I didn't go posting flamebait on the forums the first technical problem that I came across.
Yes, I'm frustrated - I don't deny that nor do I applogise for that. And yes, it was the first technical problem I had. But I did, as I always do, try to solve the problem for a reasonable length of time before posting about it! There is very little official documentation. There is an "official" wiki (not a bad thing) but all it did was point to some forums, which linked to other forums, which linked to various downloads which didn't work. The forum posts were poorly structured and inconsistent. They didn't explain how to troubleshoot the problems (as the OP didn't have the problems that I was having, it wasn't discussed). Compare that to an experience I had with a Windows Installer problem I had recently. I searched with the error message and I found a few promising leads almost instantly. They didn't actually solve my problem, but one did mention about why the problem existed. This got me thinking, and I tried something else that wasn't mentioned, but could have been related - And it worked. The difference? The answer to the questions "WHY?" and "HOW?" Why do you have to do this? How does it work? Why does it work that way? If I knew how it hangs together, and how it works then I might be able to troubleshoot on my own.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * UK Security Evangelists On Tour (2nd November, Edinburgh) * Developer Day Scotland: are you interested in speaking or attending? My: Website | Blog