Being inspired by competitors

[carsten]

Hy together,
to start: I LOVE VECTOR!
I am great fan and totally satisfied with VL5.8 on my workstation

A few day ago there was somebody mentioning, that it is alway a good idea to look at the comepetitors and geting inspired (M$ does it al the times and claimes than copyright on other peoples ideas    ).
I am writing this now on a IBM Thinkpad R32 connected via WLAN PCMCIA Card Philips SNN6500, running Xandros Desktop. The installation took me 30 min, but everthing is just out of the box). Previously I have spent hours to get this WLAN Card running under Vector and failed (yes, I did read the How-to, I can repetit it already). Same for a LevelOne WLAN Card.
So it is maybe a good idea to have a look at this Distribution. Mobile computers and WLAN are becoming more and more ordinary, but from what I learned during my tries is still pretty complicated if not imposible under Linux.

Just my opinion,
Carsten

[easuter]

Well actually wireless networking is pretty in Linux if you're using NetworkManager, everything is detected and configured "automagicaly". I can bet that thats what Xandros has (or some variant of it).

The problem is that NetworkManager consumes lots or resources (and battery power) because its permanetly scanning for available networks, and uses HAL to poll the system for wireless hardware. Add to the mix that NetworkManager needs some core GNOME componets, and you have a very bloated system for wireless networking, at least on older boxes. This will almost undoubtedly never make its way into the VL Standard and probably not SOHO either.

Its really a question of whether you are prepared to sacrifice some of the "auto" stuff for increased speed...

[carsten]

Hello,
I agree with you that I am not willing to trade every % of the system resources to eyecandy and nice-to-have thingies  but...
the point is for me that I tried 2 different pieces of hardware (both reported as basically fit for Linux) and could not get even one of them up and ready under Vector (to be fair, Debian, Ubuntu, MintLinux and a few others did not make me successful with this challenge as well). I flatter myselve as being an advanced user and I have read How-To's, googled the net, looked various forums, looked at the MadWifi instructions and invested hours of tries and errors for void.
I have no problems configuring the access data even with cli-tools in a config-file somewhere in a dubious place of an etc directory or whereever and working out the correct chmod status. But at least the basic recognition and embedding in the system should have worked.
I will stay with Vector and go on to try to get the hardware working now that I am sure it can be done (even the WPA encryption worked out of the box), but it would be a great improvement if Vector could manage WLAN in a simpler way as present.
Carsten

[easuter]

Well if you are experiencing problems, please do post for help on the forum! 

[carsten]

  I'll do, but sometimesI am feeling like the biggest fool on earth when working down the How-to the umphteentht time and still not managing the simplest things
Carsten

[easuter]

I'll do, but sometimesI am feeling like the biggest fool on earth when working down the How-to the umphteentht time and still not managing the simplest things
Carsten

Well you shouldn't feel like a fool, because you are ready to learn new stuff, and try it on your own first! (which not all people are inclined to do).
There is no shame in asking, lol. Better to do that and learn something new than to sit in "darkness".