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Yeah, I have this preconceived notion that I can plug in my usb wlan stick and have it work. Silly me. And I'm no Windows / OSX fanboy. I do have a Linux box a

Yeah, I have this preconceived notion that I can plug in my usb wlan stick and have it work. Silly me. And I'm no Windows / OSX fanboy. I do have a Linux box at home. But pretending that Linux works fine on the desktop and that people are the problem is not going to do anyone any good. In fact, if that's really the case, the obvious solution is to offer the option of Windows-like behaviour wherever these preconceived notions exist.

bad_user 17y ago
Sorry @pushingbits, but this is just trolling. I have two wlan USB sticks that work out of the box on Ubuntu and Debian (I wasn't even careful about that when buying them). In fact, those two sticks I own don't work at all on Vista (they were designed for XP), and don't work on XP without installing the drivers first. Ever tried installing Mac OS X on a non-Apple computer? Ever tried using hardware that doesn't specifically mentions "compatible with Mac OS X" on the box? Try it sometimes. The solution to your problems is to find Linux-compatible hardware. People do that for Apple computers, I don't get it why it is such a big deal for Linux, but IMHO since Linux does work out-of-the-box with most hardware devices, you'd expect it to work with everything. Well, sometimes it doesn't. Linux has many other problems but hardware drivers are not it.
- pushingbits 17y ago
  Uhm, it is a problem I have had to deal with on occasion. It is a problem that I've seen other Linux users deal with regularly. I have a non-techie friend who uses Linux and she calls me about every 3rd kernel update because some driver got messed up and there is no easy solution. It is a problem if someone wants to switch to Linux and suddenly some hardware is not working properly or at all. The fact that OSX and Vista have the same problem does not mean that it's not a problem. In fact, driver trouble is one of the main reasons that Vista turned into a big failure. But that's not really even the point. The point is that they are problems. You might have run into different ones, but whatever, they're definitely there and this attitude that if anything goes wrong it's the users fault and if people would just be more open minded and get rid of their Windows preconception everything would be totally fine is not helping.
  - bad_user 17y ago
    That's true unfortunately ... regressions in the kernel do happen. But on the upside, there's more older hardware that works in Linux than in Vista for example.
- andyking 17y ago
  I've had the same experience with one of those cheap "mobile broadband" USB dongles that have flooded the market. Windows: plug in the dongle, wait for it to pretend to be a CD drive and auto-run an installer, wait for the flaky Vodafone installer to put on various drivers and bits of proprietary software (took about 15 minutes on my machine), reboot, plug the thing back in again, wait for Windows to recognise it, load up the slow Vodafone software and connect. Ubuntu: plug in the dongle, wait for a dialog box to appear, select your country and provider (eg. UK, Vodafone), connect. I find with Ubuntu that if it works, it works better than Windows. But if your piece of hardware doesn't work straight away, it'll be a bugger to get working.

bad_user 17y ago

Sorry @pushingbits, but this is just trolling. I have two wlan USB sticks that work out of the box on Ubuntu and Debian (I wasn't even careful about that when buying them). In fact, those two sticks I own don't work at all on Vista (they were designed for XP), and don't work on XP without installing the drivers first. Ever tried installing Mac OS X on a non-Apple computer? Ever tried using hardware that doesn't specifically mentions "compatible with Mac OS X" on the box? Try it sometimes. The solution to your problems is to find Linux-compatible hardware. People do that for Apple computers, I don't get it why it is such a big deal for Linux, but IMHO since Linux does work out-of-the-box with most hardware devices, you'd expect it to work with everything. Well, sometimes it doesn't. Linux has many other problems but hardware drivers are not it.

pushingbits 17y ago
Uhm, it is a problem I have had to deal with on occasion. It is a problem that I've seen other Linux users deal with regularly. I have a non-techie friend who uses Linux and she calls me about every 3rd kernel update because some driver got messed up and there is no easy solution. It is a problem if someone wants to switch to Linux and suddenly some hardware is not working properly or at all. The fact that OSX and Vista have the same problem does not mean that it's not a problem. In fact, driver trouble is one of the main reasons that Vista turned into a big failure. But that's not really even the point. The point is that they are problems. You might have run into different ones, but whatever, they're definitely there and this attitude that if anything goes wrong it's the users fault and if people would just be more open minded and get rid of their Windows preconception everything would be totally fine is not helping.
- bad_user 17y ago
  That's true unfortunately ... regressions in the kernel do happen. But on the upside, there's more older hardware that works in Linux than in Vista for example.
andyking 17y ago
I've had the same experience with one of those cheap "mobile broadband" USB dongles that have flooded the market. Windows: plug in the dongle, wait for it to pretend to be a CD drive and auto-run an installer, wait for the flaky Vodafone installer to put on various drivers and bits of proprietary software (took about 15 minutes on my machine), reboot, plug the thing back in again, wait for Windows to recognise it, load up the slow Vodafone software and connect. Ubuntu: plug in the dongle, wait for a dialog box to appear, select your country and provider (eg. UK, Vodafone), connect. I find with Ubuntu that if it works, it works better than Windows. But if your piece of hardware doesn't work straight away, it'll be a bugger to get working.