KDE-Forum.org

I have spent the past two weeks trying to help my Dad learn how to use Linux/KDE. I convinced him to finally try it and he chose kubuntu which made me pretty happy =-because it luses kde. He is used to windows plug-n-play ability so I knew it might be difficult, but WOAH...! I was not prepared for the difficulty he had trying to get his wireless to work! I have previously used ndiswrapper and madwifi as well as having network cards that just "worked." It's not that I am a newbie either. I've used Linux and kde sine 1999.

Man I've got to say that it was a frustrating experience! He wanted to use a linksys usb adapter which was not recognized by kubuntu. We tried driver after driver and solution after solution. Nothing would work the way we read it should.

So he plugged in his Gigafast usb modem into his kubutu box and it recognized it immiediatly and worked.

But at this point my dad was "hooked." He wanted to know "Why the Linksys didn't work?" So two weeks later I got him to abandon hope that we'd ever get it going.

He didn't like all the restrictions of kubuntu so I had him install Debian. Install went great, guess what? Now the gigafast card doesn't work!
I know it's a difference in the 2.6.18 & 2.6.20 kernel and the way the two distros set it up, but come on!

By this point I have total egg on my face! My Dad is saying.. you see... this is why Linux won't ever be "ready" for the desktop. Most people won't go to this trouble to make a peice of hardware work."

And we all know he's right...

So what does this have to do with kde?

Of course KDE is not LINUX or even the kernel, but all an end user sees is the desktop. There really ought to be a graphically friendly way to linstall drivers (even windows INF drivers) and list the installed drivers within the system. And while they're at it, why not list all the possible driver's somewhere like a repository...?

We are in a wireless society and to so many people kde IS Linux. In much the same way that to others gnome IS linux.

They just want it to work...

By the way, kde ought to take a look at the way Vista configures wireless devices. talk about tons of info on a simple interface... wow!