“The early to mid 2000s were good years for Linux. The influx of
cash and general interest from major enterprise players like IBM,
Oracle and Novell gave the flagship free software operating system
an incredible boost in terms of popularity and — more importantly
— adoption.“But there was a dark side to Linux in those days. It was not
spoken of widely, save for whispered mutterings in back-room Birds
of a Feather meetings at LinuxWorld. It was something That Was Not
Spoken, yet everyone who dealt with Linux for any length of time
knew the penguin’s dark secret.“The secret, it can now be revealed, was the ridiculous lack of
wireless networking card drivers for the various Linux distros.“Scoff if you will, but few things were more aggravating than
having a cutting-edge operating system on a high-end machine–only
to be unable to connect to the Internet over the air because of a
lack of drivers.”
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
LinuxToday is a trusted, contributor-driven news resource supporting all types of Linux users. Our thriving international community engages with us through social media and frequent content contributions aimed at solving problems ranging from personal computing to enterprise-level IT operations. LinuxToday serves as a home for a community that struggles to find comparable information elsewhere on the web.
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