5 ms·

I do not just believe it, I know it. When something does not work in Linuxland the answer is still "open the terminal, enter a bunch of cryptic commands" and/or

by copx 13y ago

I do not just believe it, I know it. When something does not work in Linuxland the answer is still "open the terminal, enter a bunch of cryptic commands" and/or manually edit text-based config files. I can do that easily, I grew up with DOS. We had to tweak the parameters of the memory manager and make custom boot disks with just the right set of drivers to get games working as kids. It is just that I am not willing to do that stuff anymore. This is the 21st century and my time has value. Recent examples of my Linux "user experience": - (Fedora) Internet went down while the package manager (OMG I hate those!) was busy updating the system. This left the package manager in a corrupted state. I could no longer use the GUI to install/update anything, only gave me a "please fix me somehow" type error message. I could easily google the solution. Four cryptic terminal commands later it was good to go again. But as I said: unacceptable for a modern desktop OS. - (Ubuntu) Getting my wifi to work. Do I even have to start? I ended up having to download a kernel module .tarball from somewhere, had to integrate that into the kernel, and edit some config files by hand. Again, no problem, Google is magic. However it wasted one hour of my life: unacceptable. On Windows getting the wifi to work required.. clicking on setup.exe.

mikegioia 13y ago
I haven't had wifi issues with Ubuntu for over 5 years. What computer did you have these problems with, where you needed to install a new kernel module? You hate package managers? I don't have experience with Fedora's and I don't know why it entered an inconsistent state, but OSX/iOS use a package manager. Android uses a package manager. What problem could you possibly have with package managers? Do you enjoy manually updating software one app at a time? The answer in "Linuxland" may still be to open the terminal and enter commands but the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. I have the majority of our (albeit small) office running Ubuntu 13.10 and I've yet to encounter anything like what you've described.
- speeder 13y ago
  I think he is not angry at the package manager, he is angry that the package manager failed, and he had to use the terminal to fix it. And it IS not acceptable, I use Fedora myself, and every time this happened I got REALLY, REALLY upset, if I am using a GUI package manager, why the hell I should need to use console to fix it when it breaks? Why there is no option on the GUI to do that? Also I had a machine that I had to install a kernel module to put sound on it... Linux still have some serious issues with some hardware (mostly audio and radio-based communications, I've heard printers are problematic too, but it is years that I don't own a printer)
- copx 13y ago
  >I haven't had wifi issues with Ubuntu for over 5 years. No surprise there. Some wifi hardware is supported out of the box and will just work. That is not the problem. The pain starts when something does not just work. >What computer did you have these problems with, where you needed to install a new kernel module? Given that I am a major nerd I have multiple ones and admin even more ones. I think that particular episode happened with an Asus Eee Box B202 and an older version of Ubuntu. > but OSX/iOS use a package manager. I do not use anything Apple but if I recall correctly OS X uses self-contained .app bundles i.e. the apps usually include all their dependencies except those present on a particular OS X version by default. It is the "dependency management" done by Linux package managers which I hate. Namely that every app becomes a tangled web of dependencies with unlimited potential for pain. Apps should be self-contained, the OS should be a stable, well-defined platform to run them. I.e. "requires Window XP or newer" or "requires Mac OS X 10.6 or newer" is okay, "requires [long list of packages]" is not. That model will cause problems sooner or later. "I updated X and suddenly Y no longer works" etc. As a programmer I find the concept of simply automatically updating libfoo 2.1.x to libfoo 2.1.y because "the developers say it does not break compatibility" scary. Software is written by people, developers accidentally break compatibility all the time, or write software which depends on buggy behavior, behavior which later gets fixed by other developers, thus breaking said software. Thus all common Linux package managers are themselves broken by design. They are only acceptable if you accept that occasionally some things will just stop working after a system update. >Do you enjoy manually updating software one app at a time? I do not often have to update any software and when I do it I can usually try the new version without uninstalling the old one easily and I know that its installation will not affect any other apps on my system. Yes, I enjoy that. >the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. No disagreement there, but as I said, personally I am not willing to put up with an OS where this happens, no matter how rarely it happens - unless I have to.
  - asdfs 13y ago
    >As a programmer I find the concept of simply automatically updating libfoo 2.1.x to libfoo 2.1.y because "the developers say it does not break compatibility" scary. Software is written by people, developers accidentally break compatibility all the time, or write software which depends on buggy behavior, behavior which later gets fixed by other developers, thus breaking said software. Thus all common Linux package managers are themselves broken by design. They are only acceptable if you accept that occasionally some things will just stop working after a system update. Sounds like you'd be interested in NixOS.
- ksk 13y ago
  >but the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. How much is a few?
UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
The Linux community doesn't help either. Some of them want to be inclusive, but the majority of the community think that Linux should be an exclusive club where only those with a high level of knowledge should get treated with any kind of respect or help. Just go Google any Linux topic, and I assure you the first page will contain several forum post where the only response is "RTFM," "if you cannot figure this out you shouldn't be touching it (audio issues)" (paraphrasing), or even "maybe you'd be better off using Windows teehee." I think Ubuntu has done much to make Linux more consumer friendly and I congratulate them for that. But realistically Android or Chrome OS (Chromebook, etc) are the only two Linux OSs I'd likely use on a daily basis because in both cases they abstract you away from the ugly Linux innards better than any standard distro' is able to do. The fact that Linux depends so heavily on the terminal/console is just pathetic. It reminds me of Windows 9x. Which is kind of depressing when you consider that the Linux kernel is the most advanced kernel currently in existence, but they get weighed down by the UNIX legacy stuff, users, and GNU side of things. That's why Android is so wonderful. Instead of it being Linux/GNU, it is Linux/Android. When we get a full desktop OS without the GNU gunk and the associated bad-attitude ("terminal is the bestest, I am so 1337!!!") I'd happily switch to it. Hell I'd switch to a Linux/Android OS if Google and friends made one for the PC desktop (with real windows/multi-tasking). OS X is also a great UNIX OS because there is no terminal fallback. You can do 90%+ of things you'd ever need to do on OS X via UIs and tools. Plus the community on OS X is better than the toxic Linux community, even if they're a little defensive when people criticize Apple/OS X.
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  > ...Linux kernel is the most advanced kernel currently in existence,... I'm not sure what this even means.
  - mst 13y ago
    I'm fairly sure it doesn't.
- Stratoscope 13y ago
  > The Linux community doesn't help either. Some of them want to be inclusive, but the majority of the community think that Linux should be an exclusive club where only those with a high level of knowledge should get treated with any kind of respect or help. Just go Google any Linux topic, and I assure you the first page will contain several forum post where the only response is "RTFM," "if you cannot figure this out you shouldn't be touching it (audio issues)" (paraphrasing), or even "maybe you'd be better off using Windows teehee." Just in case anyone thinks you're making this up... For several years, the top result for a search on "ubuntu add user" was this page: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/add-a-user-on-ubuntu-server/ http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/add-a-user-on-ubuntu-s... It's an interesting page, because it recommends the use of the low-level "useradd" instead of the easier "adduser". It mentions "adduser" but only way down the page. Now the Debian/Ubuntu man page for "useradd" says "useradd is a low level utility for adding users. On Debian, administrators should usually use adduser(8) instead." http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lucid/man8/useradd.8.html http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lucid/man8/useradd.8.htm... Of course I made the outrageous mistake of thinking that a "how to geek" site might have accurate information, so I followed along and used "useradd". When that command left me in a confusing state, I posted a comment on the how to geek page suggesting that they should recommend "adduser" instead of "useradd" just like the Ubuntu man page recommends. (Click the "show archived reader comments" link on the page to see the discussion.) This did not go over well. I got these replies: > Michael Greary you are a D&%K H#$&D. You’re the 1 that messed it up no1 else, and anyone else for that matter. Hopefully you’ve learnt by now that when blindly running linux commands you should read the whole article to make sure it’s what you want first. Blaming it on other ppl isn’t gonna help either. You should’ve said it by admitting your mistake, asking for a way to rectify it. (sigh) I bet you have no friends And the somewhat more polite: > Michael Geary, you shouldn’t blame the tutorial because you didn’t read it properly. And this was after following a "how to" that recommended using the wrong command.
NinjaSaves 13y ago
In my experience, Google is only mostly magic. This is probably the fault of the Linux community. Too often the process for how to fix something in Linux is listed on a website as a few cryptic commands, then "and you've got it from there, right?" when you're completely not done yet and there are still several steps to go that they done explain. Its infuriating.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
  Not to mention that lots of the top google answers on things date back to forums posts in freaking 2005 or so with answers that are worse than useless.
_delirium 13y ago
> When something does not work in Linuxland the answer is still "open the terminal, enter a bunch of cryptic commands" and/or manually edit text-based config files. That's true in OSX too, though. After upgrading to 10.9 ("Mavericks") I had a 'systemstats' process taking up 100% CPU and >3GB of RAM at random points. Did some googling and reading through forum threads, and the solution was to muck with some BerkeleyDB files in a terminal. Is OSX an acceptable modern desktop OS? Windows in my experience has been even worse, in that for OSX there at least usually exists some arcane way of fixing your problem, while in Windows it's just "wipe and reinstall", because the problems are totally opaque. (I don't have great memories of the registry editor, either.)
- jotm 13y ago
  Nah, the new solution in Windows is "do a system restore", which is way easier than reinstalling everything. Works pretty well, too...
  - jmhain 13y ago
    Been managing a large Windows network for ~8 years; never once yet seen system restore fix a problem. It also seems to frequently introduce new ones.
jsight 13y ago
To counter your anecdotes, here are some more anecdotes: - Windows XP - Power went out at a critical stage of updates. Completely hosed the system, and wasted hours of my life having to rebuild (including rebooting multiple times to get updates installed again after the recovery). - Windows 7 - Cable giving my router IP addresses. Called ISP tech support... they had me manually plug the cable in and type cryptic commands at a DOS prompt. Is that unacceptible too? Also, I'm really baffled as to how the network going down could kill a Fedora update. The downloads happen before any significant filesystem modification in every version that I have ever used (certainly any recent one). I guess maybe some third party package does something weird during a POSTINSTALL script? I dunno.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  Yeah, hasn't Fedora used transactional updates for ages now?
- zanny 13y ago
  The problem here is that the super poster is criticizing the experience under Linux when you install any of the OSes on non-vetted hardware, whereas 99% of Windows computers come preinstalled with all the drivers properly configured. If your Windows system breaks, and that means anything beyond "oh I'm missing a driver", you have no recourse, you have to reformat. You end up googling and doing the exact same procedures you would under Linux, except because the OS internals are obscured and proprietary, you don't have whole stack detailed analysis on whatever problem you have, you have a black box and you have to hope the tools MS gives you are good enough. It doesn't change that for 99% of users, regardless of OS, when you encounter a problem you don't try to fix it yourself. Most people aren't going to even try, they are either going to take the system to an expert who would use a terminal no problem or just get another one.
  - asdfs 13y ago
    I experienced this myself recently. The Netflix metro app decided that something was wrong with the DRM path on my two-day old install of Windows 8.1. After much googling, I ended up having to re-install the OS. It was a very similar experience to when something breaks on a Linux install, except that I had less ability to go digging into the internals (not that that would be helpful for someone who doesn't know a lot about computers). I think the primary difference with Linux is that developers are fairly content mucking about with things, so breakage that would be a showstopper for someone who is not intimately familiar with computers goes somewhat unnoticed. It's hard to step back and say "what would I do if I didn't know about <x,y,z>?" in daily life.
keithpeter 13y ago
"When something does not work in Linuxland the answer is still "open the terminal, enter a bunch of cryptic commands" and/or manually edit text-based config files. I can do that easily, I grew up with DOS." I can install CentOS on a laptop, add repositories and install multimedia codecs/applications, change the language and set periodic updates all without any use of the terminal at all. I suspect that part of the reason that terminal commands are given on support fora is simply that it is easier to provide the text command than it is to describe a series of steps in words that you have to execute on a GUI. I also suspect that another part of the reason is that people who really know about Unix like OSes tend to be from a sys admin or programmer background and are more comfortable with the terminal. Agreed that this is going to have to change soon! "- (Ubuntu) Getting my wifi to work. Do I even have to start? I ended up having to download a kernel module .tarball from somewhere, had to integrate that into the kernel, and edit some config files by hand. Again, no problem, Google is magic. However it wasted one hour of my life: unacceptable. On Windows getting the wifi to work required.. clicking on setup.exe." Well of course Windows is easier to find drivers for, it is the operating system for which the cheap commodity hardware you can buy is designed. Having said that, I'm surprised that Ubuntu's restricted driver identification was unable to find the WiFi kernel module you needed. What was the module you installed and which version of Ubuntu did you install it on? My reason for asking is that having 'manually' installed a kernel module, you may have to repeat the exercise for each kernel update.
aceofspades19 13y ago
Have you ever done any troubleshooting in Windows? I spent over a year as tech support for Dell supporting Windows, and I honestly can't say that Windows is any easier to fix. Most of the time(outside of PEBKAC errors), I ended up a) enter obscure commands in cmd b) making an obscure edit to the registry or c) re installing windows. No operating system is easy for end users to fix when something isn't working right and at least in linux you very rarely have to reinstall. Your example of double clicking on setup.exe to fix the wifi is pretty wrong. First of all, you have to find the .exe file which is pretty hard for joe average and you have to make sure its the right one, etc.

by copx 13y ago

mikegioia 13y ago

I haven't had wifi issues with Ubuntu for over 5 years. What computer did you have these problems with, where you needed to install a new kernel module? You hate package managers? I don't have experience with Fedora's and I don't know why it entered an inconsistent state, but OSX/iOS use a package manager. Android uses a package manager. What problem could you possibly have with package managers? Do you enjoy manually updating software one app at a time? The answer in "Linuxland" may still be to open the terminal and enter commands but the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. I have the majority of our (albeit small) office running Ubuntu 13.10 and I've yet to encounter anything like what you've described.

speeder 13y ago
I think he is not angry at the package manager, he is angry that the package manager failed, and he had to use the terminal to fix it. And it IS not acceptable, I use Fedora myself, and every time this happened I got REALLY, REALLY upset, if I am using a GUI package manager, why the hell I should need to use console to fix it when it breaks? Why there is no option on the GUI to do that? Also I had a machine that I had to install a kernel module to put sound on it... Linux still have some serious issues with some hardware (mostly audio and radio-based communications, I've heard printers are problematic too, but it is years that I don't own a printer)
copx 13y ago
>I haven't had wifi issues with Ubuntu for over 5 years. No surprise there. Some wifi hardware is supported out of the box and will just work. That is not the problem. The pain starts when something does not just work. >What computer did you have these problems with, where you needed to install a new kernel module? Given that I am a major nerd I have multiple ones and admin even more ones. I think that particular episode happened with an Asus Eee Box B202 and an older version of Ubuntu. > but OSX/iOS use a package manager. I do not use anything Apple but if I recall correctly OS X uses self-contained .app bundles i.e. the apps usually include all their dependencies except those present on a particular OS X version by default. It is the "dependency management" done by Linux package managers which I hate. Namely that every app becomes a tangled web of dependencies with unlimited potential for pain. Apps should be self-contained, the OS should be a stable, well-defined platform to run them. I.e. "requires Window XP or newer" or "requires Mac OS X 10.6 or newer" is okay, "requires [long list of packages]" is not. That model will cause problems sooner or later. "I updated X and suddenly Y no longer works" etc. As a programmer I find the concept of simply automatically updating libfoo 2.1.x to libfoo 2.1.y because "the developers say it does not break compatibility" scary. Software is written by people, developers accidentally break compatibility all the time, or write software which depends on buggy behavior, behavior which later gets fixed by other developers, thus breaking said software. Thus all common Linux package managers are themselves broken by design. They are only acceptable if you accept that occasionally some things will just stop working after a system update. >Do you enjoy manually updating software one app at a time? I do not often have to update any software and when I do it I can usually try the new version without uninstalling the old one easily and I know that its installation will not affect any other apps on my system. Yes, I enjoy that. >the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. No disagreement there, but as I said, personally I am not willing to put up with an OS where this happens, no matter how rarely it happens - unless I have to.
- asdfs 13y ago
  >As a programmer I find the concept of simply automatically updating libfoo 2.1.x to libfoo 2.1.y because "the developers say it does not break compatibility" scary. Software is written by people, developers accidentally break compatibility all the time, or write software which depends on buggy behavior, behavior which later gets fixed by other developers, thus breaking said software. Thus all common Linux package managers are themselves broken by design. They are only acceptable if you accept that occasionally some things will just stop working after a system update. Sounds like you'd be interested in NixOS.
ksk 13y ago
>but the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. How much is a few?

UnoriginalGuy 13y ago

The Linux community doesn't help either. Some of them want to be inclusive, but the majority of the community think that Linux should be an exclusive club where only those with a high level of knowledge should get treated with any kind of respect or help. Just go Google any Linux topic, and I assure you the first page will contain several forum post where the only response is "RTFM," "if you cannot figure this out you shouldn't be touching it (audio issues)" (paraphrasing), or even "maybe you'd be better off using Windows teehee." I think Ubuntu has done much to make Linux more consumer friendly and I congratulate them for that. But realistically Android or Chrome OS (Chromebook, etc) are the only two Linux OSs I'd likely use on a daily basis because in both cases they abstract you away from the ugly Linux innards better than any standard distro' is able to do. The fact that Linux depends so heavily on the terminal/console is just pathetic. It reminds me of Windows 9x. Which is kind of depressing when you consider that the Linux kernel is the most advanced kernel currently in existence, but they get weighed down by the UNIX legacy stuff, users, and GNU side of things. That's why Android is so wonderful. Instead of it being Linux/GNU, it is Linux/Android. When we get a full desktop OS without the GNU gunk and the associated bad-attitude ("terminal is the bestest, I am so 1337!!!") I'd happily switch to it. Hell I'd switch to a Linux/Android OS if Google and friends made one for the PC desktop (with real windows/multi-tasking). OS X is also a great UNIX OS because there is no terminal fallback. You can do 90%+ of things you'd ever need to do on OS X via UIs and tools. Plus the community on OS X is better than the toxic Linux community, even if they're a little defensive when people criticize Apple/OS X.

adamnemecek 13y ago
> ...Linux kernel is the most advanced kernel currently in existence,... I'm not sure what this even means.
- mst 13y ago
  I'm fairly sure it doesn't.
Stratoscope 13y ago
> The Linux community doesn't help either. Some of them want to be inclusive, but the majority of the community think that Linux should be an exclusive club where only those with a high level of knowledge should get treated with any kind of respect or help. Just go Google any Linux topic, and I assure you the first page will contain several forum post where the only response is "RTFM," "if you cannot figure this out you shouldn't be touching it (audio issues)" (paraphrasing), or even "maybe you'd be better off using Windows teehee." Just in case anyone thinks you're making this up... For several years, the top result for a search on "ubuntu add user" was this page: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/add-a-user-on-ubuntu-server/ http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/add-a-user-on-ubuntu-s... It's an interesting page, because it recommends the use of the low-level "useradd" instead of the easier "adduser". It mentions "adduser" but only way down the page. Now the Debian/Ubuntu man page for "useradd" says "useradd is a low level utility for adding users. On Debian, administrators should usually use adduser(8) instead." http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lucid/man8/useradd.8.html http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lucid/man8/useradd.8.htm... Of course I made the outrageous mistake of thinking that a "how to geek" site might have accurate information, so I followed along and used "useradd". When that command left me in a confusing state, I posted a comment on the how to geek page suggesting that they should recommend "adduser" instead of "useradd" just like the Ubuntu man page recommends. (Click the "show archived reader comments" link on the page to see the discussion.) This did not go over well. I got these replies: > Michael Greary you are a D&%K H#$&D. You’re the 1 that messed it up no1 else, and anyone else for that matter. Hopefully you’ve learnt by now that when blindly running linux commands you should read the whole article to make sure it’s what you want first. Blaming it on other ppl isn’t gonna help either. You should’ve said it by admitting your mistake, asking for a way to rectify it. (sigh) I bet you have no friends And the somewhat more polite: > Michael Geary, you shouldn’t blame the tutorial because you didn’t read it properly. And this was after following a "how to" that recommended using the wrong command.

NinjaSaves 13y ago

In my experience, Google is only mostly magic. This is probably the fault of the Linux community. Too often the process for how to fix something in Linux is listed on a website as a few cryptic commands, then "and you've got it from there, right?" when you're completely not done yet and there are still several steps to go that they done explain. Its infuriating.

GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
Not to mention that lots of the top google answers on things date back to forums posts in freaking 2005 or so with answers that are worse than useless.

_delirium 13y ago

> When something does not work in Linuxland the answer is still "open the terminal, enter a bunch of cryptic commands" and/or manually edit text-based config files. That's true in OSX too, though. After upgrading to 10.9 ("Mavericks") I had a 'systemstats' process taking up 100% CPU and >3GB of RAM at random points. Did some googling and reading through forum threads, and the solution was to muck with some BerkeleyDB files in a terminal. Is OSX an acceptable modern desktop OS? Windows in my experience has been even worse, in that for OSX there at least usually exists some arcane way of fixing your problem, while in Windows it's just "wipe and reinstall", because the problems are totally opaque. (I don't have great memories of the registry editor, either.)

jotm 13y ago
Nah, the new solution in Windows is "do a system restore", which is way easier than reinstalling everything. Works pretty well, too...
- jmhain 13y ago
  Been managing a large Windows network for ~8 years; never once yet seen system restore fix a problem. It also seems to frequently introduce new ones.

jsight 13y ago

To counter your anecdotes, here are some more anecdotes: - Windows XP - Power went out at a critical stage of updates. Completely hosed the system, and wasted hours of my life having to rebuild (including rebooting multiple times to get updates installed again after the recovery). - Windows 7 - Cable giving my router IP addresses. Called ISP tech support... they had me manually plug the cable in and type cryptic commands at a DOS prompt. Is that unacceptible too? Also, I'm really baffled as to how the network going down could kill a Fedora update. The downloads happen before any significant filesystem modification in every version that I have ever used (certainly any recent one). I guess maybe some third party package does something weird during a POSTINSTALL script? I dunno.

voltagex_ 13y ago
Yeah, hasn't Fedora used transactional updates for ages now?
zanny 13y ago
The problem here is that the super poster is criticizing the experience under Linux when you install any of the OSes on non-vetted hardware, whereas 99% of Windows computers come preinstalled with all the drivers properly configured. If your Windows system breaks, and that means anything beyond "oh I'm missing a driver", you have no recourse, you have to reformat. You end up googling and doing the exact same procedures you would under Linux, except because the OS internals are obscured and proprietary, you don't have whole stack detailed analysis on whatever problem you have, you have a black box and you have to hope the tools MS gives you are good enough. It doesn't change that for 99% of users, regardless of OS, when you encounter a problem you don't try to fix it yourself. Most people aren't going to even try, they are either going to take the system to an expert who would use a terminal no problem or just get another one.
- asdfs 13y ago
  I experienced this myself recently. The Netflix metro app decided that something was wrong with the DRM path on my two-day old install of Windows 8.1. After much googling, I ended up having to re-install the OS. It was a very similar experience to when something breaks on a Linux install, except that I had less ability to go digging into the internals (not that that would be helpful for someone who doesn't know a lot about computers). I think the primary difference with Linux is that developers are fairly content mucking about with things, so breakage that would be a showstopper for someone who is not intimately familiar with computers goes somewhat unnoticed. It's hard to step back and say "what would I do if I didn't know about <x,y,z>?" in daily life.

keithpeter 13y ago

"When something does not work in Linuxland the answer is still "open the terminal, enter a bunch of cryptic commands" and/or manually edit text-based config files. I can do that easily, I grew up with DOS." I can install CentOS on a laptop, add repositories and install multimedia codecs/applications, change the language and set periodic updates all without any use of the terminal at all. I suspect that part of the reason that terminal commands are given on support fora is simply that it is easier to provide the text command than it is to describe a series of steps in words that you have to execute on a GUI. I also suspect that another part of the reason is that people who really know about Unix like OSes tend to be from a sys admin or programmer background and are more comfortable with the terminal. Agreed that this is going to have to change soon! "- (Ubuntu) Getting my wifi to work. Do I even have to start? I ended up having to download a kernel module .tarball from somewhere, had to integrate that into the kernel, and edit some config files by hand. Again, no problem, Google is magic. However it wasted one hour of my life: unacceptable. On Windows getting the wifi to work required.. clicking on setup.exe." Well of course Windows is easier to find drivers for, it is the operating system for which the cheap commodity hardware you can buy is designed. Having said that, I'm surprised that Ubuntu's restricted driver identification was unable to find the WiFi kernel module you needed. What was the module you installed and which version of Ubuntu did you install it on? My reason for asking is that having 'manually' installed a kernel module, you may have to repeat the exercise for each kernel update.

aceofspades19 13y ago

Have you ever done any troubleshooting in Windows? I spent over a year as tech support for Dell supporting Windows, and I honestly can't say that Windows is any easier to fix. Most of the time(outside of PEBKAC errors), I ended up a) enter obscure commands in cmd b) making an obscure edit to the registry or c) re installing windows. No operating system is easy for end users to fix when something isn't working right and at least in linux you very rarely have to reinstall. Your example of double clicking on setup.exe to fix the wifi is pretty wrong. First of all, you have to find the .exe file which is pretty hard for joe average and you have to make sure its the right one, etc.