I was curious. I have a Compaq/HP mini 700 running Ubuntu 9.04 mostly out of sheer bloodymindedness - got to recompile/reinstall the alsa drivers from source after every kernel upgrade or sound just goes away. On my desktop I have Kubuntu and, all things considered, it's no more infuriating than any other OS/distro I've tried.
Well, it booted (the first ISO image I downloaded, btw, presented me with a login screen after boot, and no obvious username/password combination seemed to work; no idea what I'd done wrong - the second ISO worked just fine) and it was amazingly slow. It installed during dinner and it presented me with a beautiful desktop by the time I'd put the dishes away, which is, all in all, faster than Windows (I think: I haven't installed Windows in quite some time). Pity about the networking - which isn't there. At all. Ifconfig only sees lo (with -a it also lists the bluetooth interface as pan0). Udev's persistent rules file is empty. A quick googling points me to some documents that suggest a number of steps to activate the Broadcom wireless interface, which don't work, mostly because the kernel module they mention (wl) isn't there and those that look like its descendants (wl12xx, wl3501_cs) do not work.
I could spend the night trying to solve the problem, which, based on past experience, will probably reappear every time the kernel is upgraded or my neighbour buys a new satellite dish or my wife moves the kitchen table; it would probably be rewarding, interesting and educational. But I already do this for a job during the day, and at home I have a wife, two cats and a mountain bike, so, sod it. I simply want an OS for my netbook, not a second, unpaid full-time job.
Well, it booted (the first ISO image I downloaded, btw, presented me with a login screen after boot, and no obvious username/password combination seemed to work; no idea what I'd done wrong - the second ISO worked just fine) and it was amazingly slow. It installed during dinner and it presented me with a beautiful desktop by the time I'd put the dishes away, which is, all in all, faster than Windows (I think: I haven't installed Windows in quite some time). Pity about the networking - which isn't there. At all. Ifconfig only sees lo (with -a it also lists the bluetooth interface as pan0). Udev's persistent rules file is empty. A quick googling points me to some documents that suggest a number of steps to activate the Broadcom wireless interface, which don't work, mostly because the kernel module they mention (wl) isn't there and those that look like its descendants (wl12xx, wl3501_cs) do not work.
I could spend the night trying to solve the problem, which, based on past experience, will probably reappear every time the kernel is upgraded or my neighbour buys a new satellite dish or my wife moves the kitchen table; it would probably be rewarding, interesting and educational. But I already do this for a job during the day, and at home I have a wife, two cats and a mountain bike, so, sod it. I simply want an OS for my netbook, not a second, unpaid full-time job.
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