Linux is back

A little over a week has passed since I wrote about my departure from Linux. But I couldn't take it any longer, I needed it back. Since the purchase of my laptop in November, I haven't really used my desktop for more than a printer/file server anyway, so it wasn't a huge loss to let it run windows to keep the printer hassles to a minimum. What really hurt was the terrible experience I had trying to get Linux usable on my laptop. In comes Ubuntu Feisty Fawn.

I have been reading a lot on the new release of Ubuntu, mostly focused on its improved laptop hardware support. I finally sucked it up and downloaded the Feisty Fawn beta after reading that it has out-of-the-"box" support for Broadcom wireless devices. A few hours later, I was sitting in Feisty on my laptop with a "usable" wireless connection... if you call 20kBps usable. Other than the wireless, everything else worked fine. A quick installation of the 915resolution package fixed my resolution settings to support 1280x800, but I still couldn't stand the wireless speed.

I was stuck. I either had to suck it up and use the near dial-up wireless connection, or go back to Windows on my laptop. I caved in, I couldn't bare go back to Windows. So I did what any sensible person would do and ran out to the local computer store and bought an Intel 3945abg mini PCI-express networking card (I've always been happy with Intel's Linux support compared to other companies). I raced home and popped out the whole Broadcom BCM4311 card and connected my new Intel card. Fired up Feisty, and there I sat with a 54mbps WEP-encrypted (yes I know, I need to switch to WPA...) connection.

Life is good. I have my Linux back