contact51 wrote: > Such a dissapointment. > > Over the recent weeks I have really put in the hours getting to grips with > Linux by way of Fedora, having progressed from FC3-4 and now FC5. > > Being more than satisfied with results until now. Big problem. > > I went and bought a PCMCIA card for my laptop hoping to be able to use it. > > My HDD is divided into two - Windows XP and Fedora 5. > > It took probably about 2 minutes to install the card, up and running under > XP. > > Some six hours later, after reading through numerous internet descriptions > on how one might install such a device, downloading and installing > gigabytes of files, wrappers etc. etc... still nothing! Eventually giving > up in despair I decided that some of my original fears about Linux have to > be correct. It is just a muddle of half cooked amateur computer files > cobbled together to resemmble an OS that probably performs somewhere at > about 60% compared to that of Bill Gates' Windows. I don't agree with the others who have said that you are trolling. I think there is quite a lot in your posting. However, if you spent 6 hours reading about Linux WiFi I would have thought it would be worth 6 seconds to say what PCMCIA card you are talking about. > Over the past years I have tried linux, different flavours, different > version, always the same frustrating result. > > One wonders when the linux comunity will either ever get it right or give > it up as a bad job. Are you talking just about WiFi, or is this a general gripe? If so, you would have to specify your complaint a little more accurately. > Such as what by todays technology standards should be such a simple > affair, as Microsoft have proved - plug in and install a PCMCIA wireless > card within three minutes - no typing fingers to the bone wearing out > keyboards in the process, for no result in six hours!!!! Guiness Book of > Records stuff me thinks! The point is, nobody will sell a WiFi card that does not run under Windows. Actually, if you get a card that does not have a driver for your version of Windows, eg because it is too old, you are much worse off than under Linux, in my experience, as there is very little you can do. At least with Linux, you are likely to find someone with the same card who has solved the problem. But that, admittedly, will only occur a small percentage of the time. The moral of the story, it seems to me, is that if you want an easy time with Linux you should verify that someone is running the hardware you are going to get before you buy it. Personally, I would never buy a PCMCIA card without googling to see if it runs under Linux. -- Timothy Murphy e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
