[SATLUG] Why Ubuntu is the best distribution for wifi-enabled computers

[Shawn Bender]

Hmmm.. I have the Broadcom card in my Dell, running PCLinux 07 just asked 
for the drivers and it worked. no real effort.
You might wanna look. I went from Ubuntu/Kubuntu and have never looked 
back.

Thank you for your time,

Shawn Bender
Humana DSI
8119 Datapoint Dr
San Antonio, TX. 78229
(210)615-3103



Ed <etillman93 at peoplepc.com> 
Sent by: satlug-bounces at satlug.org
09/09/2007 11:20 PM
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Re: [SATLUG] Why Ubuntu is the best distribution for wifi-enabled 
computers






Ok...  I'm going a bit nutz here with everyone crowing about Ubuntu 
doing wifi right out of the box.

I've been using Ubuntu since 2/07, and have had no such luck.  I have an 
Acer Aspire 3050 laptop with a Broadcom air card (ndiswrapper'd 
bcmwl5...).  While I can get to the internet over a wire without 
incident, Ubuntu only marginally found windows-based networks and wifi 
(at all) under release 6.10 (Edgy), and doesn't find them at all under 
7.04 (Feisty). All works very well on the dual-boot XP side.

Finding and installing all the madwifi drivers I could locate didn't 
help any either.

So, before y'all go shooting off your keys (and your mouths...) about 
just how good, or how all-inclusive a fix might be, It might be rather 
interesting if you sought any problems with your fix first...

Cheers;

Ed Tillman
Instructor, I/T Corporate and Community Education
Palo Alto College, ACCD, San Antonio, TX
CompTIA Network+, A+ Certified, IT Pro Mentor
Registered Linux user 449064
Machine registry number 356576

phn1x wrote:
> I've always pondered the same question. This weekend I loaded up Fedora 
Core
> 6 on my desktop and replaced my last windows system. I've been dual 
booting
> my last 3 laptops with xp and ubuntu. Recently I purchased a new Acer 
Aspire
> and went to dualboot between freebsd 6.2 and slackware. The unfortunate 
mess
> of it was the lack of support for the Intel pro wireless 3945ABG. 
However,
> Ubuntu loaded it just fine. I've stuck with ubuntu on my laptops for 
that
> exact reason. I plug er in and she works, with little to no screwing 
around.
> I think more distro's need to come around, perhaps then linux would 
start
> getting more play time. As it stands, people dont want to deal with 
that.
> They want something like windows XP that just works. Of course, Recently 
I
> read an article on darkreading.com that did a side by side comparison to
> Windows XP and Ubuntu... n't f
>
>  9/9/07, Sean Carolan <scarolan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Ubuntu includes the madwifi binary drivers for Atheros based wifi
>> chipsets.  This may not seem like a big deal, but it's huge for people
>> whose only convenient way to connect to the internet is via wifi.
>> Yes, you could download a driver .rpm or .deb on another box (or from
>> within Windows on the same machine), copy to a USB stick, load them on
>> your box and try to configure it by hand . . .
>>
>> But what if you're a newb, and you don't know that you need
>> madwifi-kmdl and madwifi-hal-kmdl as well as madwifi?  Now you have to
>> either reboot or walk over to that other computer to download another
>> package, put it on the usb stick, etc.  And if you can get this far,
>> how do you choose from the 50 different drivers that have been
>> compiled for the last 5 kernel revisions on 32 and 64 bit
>> architectures?  A Linux power user could figure this out with the
>> uname command, but he shouldn't *have* to.
>>
>> Ubuntu handles the situation well by including binary drivers but
>> giving the end user the option to use them or not.  It's as easy as
>> clicking on the "restricted drivers" menu option and checking a box.
>>
>> Why doesn't Red Hat (or Fedora) do this?  Are there any other "free as
>> in beer" distributions that include wifi and graphics drivers this
>> way?
>>
>> Disclaimer:  I use Ubuntu on my work laptop, and CentOS 5 on my home
>> workstation.
>> --
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