Hi. Thanks for the good read….

I found it very useful. Thanks for the knowledge. I am personally trying to follow the advice & try to be independent….

I found this article to be extremely useful for me. Thanks!…

Yes, nothings perfect. Yes we should al work toward making it “just work”. The complexities of what we expect our personal computers to do today is massive and growing. New hardware will always have rough edges on any system.

The assumtion is, when one device does eventually work in XP(for example,) and the same does not in Ubuntu 5.10(Specifically for example) people tend to think less of ubuntu. But hold on. SOME of the chip-set manufacturers are in fact, Linux hostile. They won’t even allow open development, for fear of Microsoft’s(and their minions) retaliation. So I agree, it should be easier but who’s causing it? To date, NDISwrapper and it’s point and click downloadable installer can use most XP drivers and it works. Plus, massive effort is taking place for new chip-sets.

The thing to remember is this: If NO USB WiFi devices worked with Ubuntu (and many do) then I’d still takeUbuntu for all the other devices that do, “just work” AND the better managed Ubuntu stable software set (and you can dual boot you old Windows by the way, and do it for no extra cost.)

The new hard thing is, some (Belkin) products are not only changing chip-sets faster than their shorts, their also making it impossible to read the chip-set type.

So since in the end, you ultimately have to try a device and see, you best take the friendly posters advice and use a “Wireless ethernet bridge” AKA game adapter. If you really have to be mobile on a laptop AND do WiFi, get a Wireless Ethernet Bridge that also adapts the power needed from a USB port(just for power.)

In case you missed it, a WEB(..ridge) is driverless from your perspective. It’s drivers are internallly set and so is your Ethernet (via Crossover Net cable) plug in (hardwired NIC).

You see, these new devices are largely software driven and that leads to all manner of instabilities. A bridge doesn’t depend on your processor and it’s driver module.

So work through any cheap device you may have and remember, Windows takes more time to manage and needs a clean install. Not to metion tah Windows is not and can not be secured on the same level as Ubuntu.

I had a lot of problems getting wireless to work in Fedora and Debian, although I did get there in the end. Recently I installed SUSE 9.3, I was already dreading having to do the wireless setup all over again however I was presently surprised when it worked straight out of the box without a hitch (including security).

Good luck with it!

WGE101 sounds like a nice work-around, but still it feels like a work-around to me for something that actually just should work. Of course, the first finger is to be pointed to the lazy manufacturers, which refuse to write decent drivers for linux.

And yes, there’s ndiswrapper. Also a workaround, but it works! but only when one succeeds in installing it. And here I have to agree with Peter, for the average man this is way to much work. I too am quite experienced in using the computers. But being experienced herin does not mean hassling aroudn with drivers is one of my hobbies.

Why not make a nice installscript for ndiswrapper? This would take a pretty large part of Peter’s (and mine) grieves away.