» Wi-fi on Ubuntu
Wi-fi on Ubuntu
With the release of the new Ubuntu 5.10, my oldest kid and I decided to install Linux on the PC he's got in his room since June.
Download the ISO file with BitTorrent (fast: 90 minutes!), burn it, boot the PC and here we go!
During setup, the wi-fi card is found but the system cannot properly set it up. Hmm... driver problem? We'll see that later... From there on, installation goes smoothly to its end and we have the nice Ubuntu login page. Great!
The wi-fi is still not connected, so let's use the neat network setup utility (heavily inspired by MacOS!). Still fails... Hmm... this is a Creatix card which Ubuntu displays as "Intersil ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow]".
Googling around, I find that the built-in driver isn't setting up the card properly, and that a solution may be to use ndiswrapper, which allows to use the Windoze drivers on Linux (nice idea!). The Ubuntu wiki even has a nice page explaining step by step how to proceed. A bit of command-line magic that scares my kid, and... still doesn't work...
Google, google again, and I find another nice page in the ndiswrapper wiki explaining how to proceed. That one adds an important information about how to disable Ubuntu-provided drivers that override ndiswrapper's one at boot time!
So let's move away the "prism2" and "prism52" directories from "/lib/modules/2.6.12-9-386/kernel/drivers/net/wilreless/", "depmod -a", reboot and... Yes! It works!
All this to say that Linux is better and better at replacing Windoze. But if I hadn't been in computers, my kid would have just trashed Ubuntu.
So, a little hint to the Linux distro makers: why don't you make ndiswrapper an integral part of the system installation process, so that people can use the windoze drivers that come with their PCs?
Download the ISO file with BitTorrent (fast: 90 minutes!), burn it, boot the PC and here we go!
During setup, the wi-fi card is found but the system cannot properly set it up. Hmm... driver problem? We'll see that later... From there on, installation goes smoothly to its end and we have the nice Ubuntu login page. Great!
The wi-fi is still not connected, so let's use the neat network setup utility (heavily inspired by MacOS!). Still fails... Hmm... this is a Creatix card which Ubuntu displays as "Intersil ISL3886 [Prism Javelin/Prism Xbow]".
Googling around, I find that the built-in driver isn't setting up the card properly, and that a solution may be to use ndiswrapper, which allows to use the Windoze drivers on Linux (nice idea!). The Ubuntu wiki even has a nice page explaining step by step how to proceed. A bit of command-line magic that scares my kid, and... still doesn't work...
Google, google again, and I find another nice page in the ndiswrapper wiki explaining how to proceed. That one adds an important information about how to disable Ubuntu-provided drivers that override ndiswrapper's one at boot time!
So let's move away the "prism2" and "prism52" directories from "/lib/modules/2.6.12-9-386/kernel/drivers/net/wilreless/", "depmod -a", reboot and... Yes! It works!
All this to say that Linux is better and better at replacing Windoze. But if I hadn't been in computers, my kid would have just trashed Ubuntu.
So, a little hint to the Linux distro makers: why don't you make ndiswrapper an integral part of the system installation process, so that people can use the windoze drivers that come with their PCs?
ndiswrapper is a nasty hack. Using the windows drivers in linux could cause all sorts of problems that could not be diagnosed because the sources aren't handy. When it works, great, when it doesn't, you are on your own.
ndiswrapper is also x86-only, so you can't use it to get your airport extreme (broadcom) card to work on a macintosh, for example.
The correct solution is for enough pressure to be placed on the chipset companies to encourage them to provide drivers for linux.
Integrading ndiswrapper into the kernel, installation processes, etc. will be counter-productive, and detrimental especially to non-x86 users.
A little hint to the PC buyers: why don't you buy inter-operable hardware?
Seriously, there are IP problems with hardware that prevent benevolent programmers to satisfy the dream of the perfect plug-and-play system.
For now we have not reached with hardware the level of freedom we have with software like Cocoon.
How do you know if the PC you're buying at the local supermarket is interoperable? And don't tell me that I should assemble my PC myself. Sure *I* and *you* can, but average people can't.
Also, supermarkets nowadays offer nice configurations at a very affordable price, which I'm not sure I could reach by buying pieces separately.
The ndiswrapper thing maybe a hack, but how do you convince hardware manufacturers to write Linux drivers when Windoze still has more than 90% marketshare? An interim solution is to allow people to switch to Linux with a small deviation to the free software mantra rather than letting them stuck with a non-working system. That will lead to more people using Linux, and finally manufacturers considering writing native drivers.
Classical chicken and egg problem.
Maybe you can help testing the ndisgtk package, which is currently in the universe repository?
I agree with you that it's Chicken-and-Egg, but I think "I have returned your product and bought a competitors which has linux drivers" speaks more loudly than "I don't need you to write linux drivers, I'll just use ndiswrapper on the windows ones". Of course the former isn't possible in the supermarket-pc scenario, and is also a lot of inconvenience.
(PS I think your preview button isn't feeling too well...)
May I congratulate you however on giving ubuntu a go :)