On Thu, 27 Apr 2006, Gene Heskett wrote:
On Thursday 27 April 2006 22:17, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
On Thu, 27 Apr 2006, Gene Heskett wrote:
I've been trolling that list for nearly a week now, and haven't
found anyone who understands the problem well enough to ask me have
you done this, and that, and this other thing? The assumption is
that it Just Works(TM) and it doesn't with my hardware.
One more time: If you aren't getting satisfaction from this list, take
your question to networkmanager-list@xxxxxxxxx (subscribe at
mail.gnome.org). The people who read that list will know what
questions to ask and are in the best position to either help you out
or fix bugs in NM.
What's so objectionable about that?
Matthew, I just stated that I've been subbed to that list for several
days. And I'm not finding any magical pixie dust there either. Lets
face it, I'm walking on ground thats not been tread on before, and the
I apologize, I completely misread which mailing list you were referring
to, and I haven't been reading that list closely enough to see your thread
there and connect it back to this one. Must have been tired when I
responded.
I see you do indeed seem to be operating hardware that requires
interaction of a number of different, independently developed, bleeding
edge bits--ndiswrapper and the closed-source driver for your card, the
open-source driver for your card, NetworkManager, etc. That will require
patience and time and interacting with the developers.
ability to get clear back down to the basics in starting to solve a
problem seems to have gotten lost in the assumption that 'everyone
knows about that' when we don't always. And I don't think I'm being
out of line all that much when I do attempt to draw a picture of what
I've got hardware wise, and describe what isn't working without
spending 4 paragraphs per piece of hardware in the path, and failing to
do so in a manner that allows those who might be able answer my
question, because they are lost at turn two in an 8 turn road course
I've tried to describe.
Thats my fault to a certain extent of course, and I tend to bypass whats
important to others because I've been there and done that and I see
that particular item as already checked and unimportant. But it leads
to others being confused because my train of thought tends to jump
around depending on the clues. I've spent the majority of my 71 years
fixing electronics things for a living, and I don't always understand
that others don't jump to the answers from what limited info I've got,
but I can because after 55 years, you get a sense of smell & feeling
that lets you bypass the intermediate steps others would use to
confirm, and I've been right often enough that one person, watching me
work, wanted to know if I had webbed feet because surely I was walking
on water as far as he was concerned.
Well, understanding that about yourself, you can understand how developers
can get into the same mindset. They have the benefit of knowledge about
the field they're working in as well, and it is all too easy to act as
though everyone has the same knowledge framework as you do.
But to effectively work with a diverse group of specialists such as the
driver authors and the ndiswrapper authors and the NM and wpa_supplicant
authors, you will need to (a) get out of that mindset yourself and be
disciplined about gathering evidence and working your way through the
process and (b) encourage the developers you are working with to get out
of their mindset and communicate with you enough so that you reach common
understanding. As I said, patience and perseverance are needed.
For example, if you want to try the open-source driver for your card (the
best long-run solution), you'll need to learn to build and install kernel
modules. And you'll need to fight through the lack of documentation while
encouraging people to solve that problem (and maybe even contributing
yourself).
Unforch, that 'intuition' seems to be fading as I get into the 7th
decade. And I should have used "subscribed" rather than "trolling"
above, but thats what I feel I'm doing, throwing out a line and
trolling for nibbles.
Sure, although "trolling" here usually refers to deliberate attempts to
incite flame wars--not your intention, I'm sure.
--
Matthew Saltzman
Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs
