Comment 68 for bug 53310

On Sun, 2009-03-22 at 02:47 +0000, wordsmyth wrote:
> I've followed these postings with interest, astounded by the trials and
> tribulations some users have to wade through to get their connection up
> and running again - no wonder so many newbies flee Linux in confusion!

If they do it is probably for the best. If the manufacturers do not
provide active support for drivers for Linux as well as Windows, and do
not provide the technical documentation for their proprietary devices,
then their users lose the ability to choose their preferred OS.

> You don't have to plow through this stuff when you're using Windows ...

Actually on Windows it can be worse. These third-party drivers are
sometimes hard to find especially for older devices where the original
media has been lost or damaged.

If you look at a typical Windows PC you'll find that there will be a
whole bunch of third-party driver packages (usually pre-installed by the
manufacturer) that need manual installation if the machine is rebuilt -
On the range of Sony Vaios I have each has at least eight driver
packages that require manual installation/update management.

Many of them don't get updated and if bugs appear the user is powerless
to do anything about it.

None of those provide any central update management and notification
such as Ubuntu and other distributions do.

For Linux, installing third-party drivers is relatively rare since
almost all hardware has (some) support from the mainline kernel. The
obvious exceptions are things like ATI and Nvidia video drivers but that
is the same for Windows too - constant third-party updates.

The Linux approach means that once the driver is in the mainline kernel
it is available to all without needing to locate and install it
(provided the distro enables the module).

> Anyway, I had similar problems which now appear to be resolved, without
> recourse to any of the suggestions on these postings. I run Ubuntu 8.10
> on and Acer 3680 laptop, and while I had trouble for a while, losing my
> wireless connection when I hibernated or suspended, but since I've done
> a clean re-install of Ubuntu 8.10 and downloaded ALL updates, I no
> longer experience this maddening problem.

I think that will be related to the atheros drivers, which rely on
continuous reverse engineering or restricted options.