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Some of the issues described in the article have existed for as long as I've toyed with Linux distributions, spanning almost two decades now. This can all be n

Some of the issues described in the article have existed for as long as I've toyed with Linux distributions, spanning almost two decades now. This can all be neatly dodged by buying hardware that's known to be supported OOB with FOSS drivers, but more often than not, the machines that I need or want to run Linux on aren't hand-picked to run Linux. They're almost always prebuilts that had originally ran Windows or macOS, and there's often some amount of urgency attached — I need that Linux install now, not in a week when that replacement wifi/bluetooth card from eBay shows up. It's lead to some ridiculous hijinks to get things working. On more than one occasion, I ended up using a rocky tethered connection to my iPhone, retrying several times due to dropouts, to get Broadcom wifi drivers installed because figuring out the exact package I needed to put on a thumb drive to install offline was nigh impossible.

caf 6y ago
For future reference, keeping a USB Ethernet adaptor handy seems to work well in those situations (well, as long as there's an ethernet port to plug into I suppose!).
nobodywasishere 6y ago
> On more than one occasion, I ended up using a rocky tethered connection to my iPhone, retrying several times due to dropouts, to get Broadcom wifi drivers installed Funny enough going off of this, I really like how with Android, it's really easy to share a Wi-Fi connection over USB to a computer, instead of having to use data. On more than one occasion myself, I've simply left an old android phone (that has no SIM card or data plan) attached to a computer to give it internet for months instead of buying a wifi card.
cycloptic 6y ago
IMO, if you plan to install nonfree drivers anyway and don't know or care which ones you need, just use ubuntu.
- slim 6y ago
  you can't say that. ubuntu is not anymore an uncompromised experience of free software. someone who's coming from non-free software is looking for security, he does not want to still have that feeling that a company is trying to screw him with dark patterns when he's using his computer.
  - cycloptic 6y ago
    That's why I said if you plan to install the nonfree drivers anyway :)
    - Gaelan 6y ago
      There's arguably a big difference between non-free firmware (which is relatively isolated, and doesn't even run on the same CPU as the OS) and the user-facing stuff GP is talking about in Ubuntu.
      - cycloptic 6y ago
        You don't need to use or install that stuff though, stuff like snappy is totally optional... just like the nonfree drivers.

caf 6y ago

For future reference, keeping a USB Ethernet adaptor handy seems to work well in those situations (well, as long as there's an ethernet port to plug into I suppose!).

nobodywasishere 6y ago

> On more than one occasion, I ended up using a rocky tethered connection to my iPhone, retrying several times due to dropouts, to get Broadcom wifi drivers installed Funny enough going off of this, I really like how with Android, it's really easy to share a Wi-Fi connection over USB to a computer, instead of having to use data. On more than one occasion myself, I've simply left an old android phone (that has no SIM card or data plan) attached to a computer to give it internet for months instead of buying a wifi card.

cycloptic 6y ago

IMO, if you plan to install nonfree drivers anyway and don't know or care which ones you need, just use ubuntu.

slim 6y ago
you can't say that. ubuntu is not anymore an uncompromised experience of free software. someone who's coming from non-free software is looking for security, he does not want to still have that feeling that a company is trying to screw him with dark patterns when he's using his computer.
- cycloptic 6y ago
  That's why I said if you plan to install the nonfree drivers anyway :)
  - Gaelan 6y ago
    There's arguably a big difference between non-free firmware (which is relatively isolated, and doesn't even run on the same CPU as the OS) and the user-facing stuff GP is talking about in Ubuntu.
    - cycloptic 6y ago
      You don't need to use or install that stuff though, stuff like snappy is totally optional... just like the nonfree drivers.