WiFi under Linux - rant no 7

Why is WiFi configuration under Linux so painful
and time-consuming?

You put your WiFi card in the laptop.
If you're lucky one light comes on.
If you are really lucky the second light starts flashing.
(I'm thinking of Orinoco-like cards.)

But you get no message from the computer.
You try "ping www.google.com" but this meets with silence.

No-one tells you, but sooner or later you look in /etc/pcmcia
and deduce that the computer reads "config"
and then perhaps "wireless.opts".
Unless the kernel is very recent,
in which case it tries to use hostap whatever you say.

What would I like?
First of all I'd like to be told the card is actually working.
Then I'd like to be told if it could "hear" any other WiFi source,
and if so what I need to do to link to it.

The wizards I've tried (mainly in RedHat and more recently Fedora)
are utterly useless.
I thought NetworkManager would be the answer,
but now I doubt if any such program can work with all WiFi cards.
In my case it simply added to the problems
by altering configuration files already set up.

As a general rule, I'd like any program that alters files
to be obliged to copy the previous version
(in such a way as not to over-write earlier versions,
eg config1, config2, etc).
And I'd like any program that alters config files
to tell me what files it has altered.

I believe millions of hours have been wasted around the world
getting WiFi set up.

Windows is not perfect, by any means -
I'd give it 5 out of 10, and Linux 1 out of 10.
At least when Windows WiFi doesn't work,
it doesn't work -
it doesn't hint that it may start working
if only you try a bit harder.
Though the Windows Troubleshooter
is almost as bad as the Linux wizards.



--
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
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: WiFi under Linux - rant no 7
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