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Re: [LUG] Kubuntu warning

 

On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 10:11 +0100, Tom Potts wrote:
> I dont know if anyone out there uses Kubuntu  but the latest kernel (...20.4

20 ?

Shouldn't you be on 2.6.25 by now? The .25 series have improved wireless
card support (the b43 driver for broadcom stuff has improved immensely).

As far as kernels and driver support, there shouldn't be any difference
between Ubuntu, KUbuntu or any other flavour - it is the age of the
distro that likely determines the latest kernel available and you might
be better served with Debian testing as it will continually update.

I'm beginning to wish that Ubuntu had a rolling update distro like
testing or unstable because, to me, the version of the distro should
only affect the installation. As long as you have a sufficiently recent
installer that the hardware is recognised and the install can proceed,
all should be well. After installation, it should be trivial to choose
whichever rolling update you want (or remain on 'stable'). Having to
install Hardy and then be stuck with Hardy until you do another install
(or upgrade from the installer which is the same thing) is just so
Windows-esque. After all, it is only a question of a symlink in the
repository - release Lenny and the etch symlink moves to point at
oldstable, the lenny symlink points to stable, the symlink for the next
release points to testing and sid remains as is. I'm sure Ubuntu could
do the same if they wanted.

Then you could install Dapper (if your hardware is old enough to be
recognised by the Dapper installer) and upgrade to Intrepid without all
the upgrades in between. OK, it's not quite as trivial as that -
upgrading from Sarge to Etch had a few glitches and Etch to Lenny might
have a few such glitches.

It would make much more sense, to me, for people to be just running
"Ubuntu" (as the original email stated) instead of "Ubuntu Hardy" or
"Ubuntu Gutsy" as if these are somehow isolated distributions that
between which users are unable to migrate.

>  i 
> think) seems to chuck out your wireless cards !!
> Booting the ...19.. kernel gets it back thanks goodness!

If this is ndiswrapper, that is probably why. Proprietary drivers are
horrendous and if a newer kernel has integrated free software support,
it is always, always, better to use that.

It is bad enough having to use closed-source firmware (as you still need
to do with b43) but the only remaining problem I have with my b43 is
that it only comes out of hibernation once; hibernate again and it fails
to recover - forcing either a cable network connection or a reboot.
(During the reboot, the wireless card also causes a kernel error - due
to the closed source firmware.) Laptop reboots aren't exactly a problem
though - coming out of hibernation takes only 5 seconds less than a full
reboot. The hassle comes if you have apps open at the time of
hibernation.

The only reason that my desktop machine ever gets a reboot is so that I
don't have to leave it running whilst I am away on conferences.

-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/


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