Ubuntu-LB Wireless Issues, Kernel, Testing

[Chris Crisafulli]

On Wed, 2010-05-26 at 12:00 +0100, ubuntu-lb-request at lists.ubuntu.com
wrote:
> Unity is useless for the time being, as long as wireless connection is
> not reliable on linux/ubuntu because of the modifications to how the
> kernel handles networking and some drivers are still not patched to
> take into account those modifications.

Johnny,

I have been contacted plenty off-list with people saying that their
experience with Ubuntu has been turbulent for them for whatever reason.
Are you using the latest version Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS, and still having
wireless issues? There has been many great efforts to make these type of
issues a thing in the past, but when it boils down to it, most of the
drivers and network cards are not open sourced, and the vendors could
care less about "our" Linux experience. 

Vendor bias towards windows always makes it difficult, as in certain
model netbooks and laptops. Some really creative ways have been made to
ensure that your best experience will be under windows straight out of
the box only. Things such as wifi being turned off in the bios, until
the windows driver initializes, then auto-magically the wifi is marked
on in the BIOS from that point on. Sure you could have went in the bios
and switched it manually, but still some people spend hours
troubleshooting this, and it leads to  serious frustration. I have
personally seen this on laptops with Hardware and function-key
combination switches being the culprit for intermittent wifi
connectivity.

In the cases of brand new hardware that hasn't been in the kernel, or
issues like the broadcom and realtek wifi cards, I have recommended that
people purchase usb wifi adapters or pcmcia wireless cards that have
been known to work without issues under Ubuntu. So that you don't have
issues, triple check that you have a pcmcia slot (and not a new
mini-pcmcia slot) etc. to make sure you get the right card for your
machine.

Not sure if you have seen the following links: 

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Netbooks
http://www.ubuntuhcl.org/

These are/were attempts at identifying problematic hardware. There have
been many advancements and some new opportunities for contributions,
There has been lots of work that has went in to making hardware easier
to test (Check out the Automation Link in the Subheading of the wiki
below).

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/Laptop

Caution though, a lot of the fixes you see on some these pages are kind
of outdated and there have been, make sure to verify the version of
Ubuntu they are reporting on, and understand that using any fixes
outside of package management is at your own risk.

The purpose behind the tips and links were so that others that are
reading this can find out further details for themselves, and hopefully
in the long run find and interest and a way they can easily contribute. 

Thanks for your time,

Chris C.