5 Reasons Users Fail to Make the Linux Switch

Jan 23, 2009, 13:02 (6 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Matt Hartley)

"The key is to realize that, encouraging users to waste time with chipsets made by Windows/Apple centric companies such as Broadcom, is hardly doing anything for Linux adoption.

"Despite many distributions providing some sort of wireless card compatibility list to work with, most of these lists are littered with wifi cards that use NDISWrapper to run, which in my opinion defeats the value of compiling such a list in the first place.

"Rather than concentrating on Atheros, Intel, Realtek, Ralink, and even devices using the ZD1211 module, users are immediately encouraged in nearly every Linux forum out there to rely on NDISWrapper instead. If NDISWrapper actually worked with a duplicable level of success with each driver used with it, I might not be so against it. Unfortunately, it has resulted in hundreds of forum postings from users who followed give directions to a complete and utter failure. Going "native" will always yield better results."

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