Not necessarily. I'll still go see the artists live, where (hopefully) more/most of my money is ending up in their pockets. Furthermore, if there's an artist that's good enough for me, I'll have no problems hunting down some legal way to get their music, making sure they get compensated for it. Especially if they're not signed with the RIAA members.
I'd like to think there's enough people out there like me to make a difference. Maybe there isn't. Maybe there is.
Seriously though, it's Microsoft's product - they have right to decide what's done with it.
Really? So if I buy a car from Subaru, Subaru has a right to decide that I can only drive on major highways, and not on dirt roads? Or if I buy a toaster from GE, GE has a right to decide what bread I'm allowed to toast in it?
I'd really not rather have a company place artificial limitations on what I can do with their product once its gets into my hands, thank you very much. I had a fit when HP decided to take extra efforts to make sure that their lower end printer models couldn't be shared across a network via normal Windows printer sharing... they tried to force the customer into buying their higher end model with built-in networking. Most of my clients were rather irritated at HP once I let them know, too. MS wants to pull the same game, not a problem... and when my clients get irritated at MS, I'll be more than happy to suggest alternatives.
Yeah... welcome to my nightmares. Fairly sure that if the RIAA could get copyright infringement officialy declared a sin, they'd have already done it, so I think I'm ok;o).
...but once you have two copies of the movie, why keep them both?...
It's nice to have a backup copy around?
Yeah, I know... just make a backup copy of the first copy, then turn around and sell the original/master. Some of us prefer being honest, though. Helps us sleep at night. And on the off chance that there's a big guy with a big list of our mistakes/sins waiting for us in the afterlife, it might help.
I need a copy of OpenOffice now, on my P3-600 laptop with 384 MB of RAM. I can't afford to wait the two/three days it's gonna take OO to compile. So I install the openoffice-bin package (binary, mind you), do whatever it is that I've got to do, then set the laptop up to install the "from source" openoffice package when I get my next three day weekend.
Mind you, this doesn't bother me, mainly 'cause the last thing I'm going to want to do on my three day weekend is touch anything computer related. Lock me in a room with a set of books and some light classical music in the background. Or rent a cabin for me up in the middle of the Adirondacks, preferably without any electricity or other "modern amenities". Will I care that OO is taking 3 days to compile? Heck no. Just don't make me wait for it.
Mind elaborating on this one a bit? I've been tempted to start playing around with a distro other than Gentoo, probably (K)Ubuntu... but I do hear this same complaint quite often. On Gentoo, I stick with the stable packages for the most part, and if something's too far behind, I unmask it and work with the "unstable" version. This usually works perfectly fine for me (with the one notable exception of Scorched3d & OpenAl... I'm getting horrible static).
Not that I'm trying to attack you, keep in mind... I'm genuinely curious. And I wouldn't mind if you detailed the update process for Ubuntu... I've been spoiled by that "emerge -uDv world", I suppose;o)
...Hours later, after filling him with coffe and water, they deny him use of the bathroom. They get their confession after hours of interrogation...
I would seriously have to ask why the "detainee" is bothered enough by being forced to hold his urine to actually confess to a crime he didn't commit. If I were in his place, I'd simply piss on the floor. I assume this would open me up to being arrested for some other crime (probably public urination, but I'd argue that it wasn't public), but I'd much rather be accused of a crime that I did commit than a crime I did not. Especially a crime that I could argue I was forced into, by the police. Don't they consider that entrapment?
So let's play the other side: I tell the client not to install any patch without explicitly finding out what the patch corrects and ensuring that it will not damage his computer (with regards to software, not that many of my clients would be able to tell the difference). Most of my clients do not have the patience nor the time to research each patch. Of those that do, most would not be able to understand exactly what the patch does. Following that, most of my clients will not install the patches.
So when the next Blaster/Welchia-like worm hits, they haven't downloaded the patch 'cause they listened to me... and then I get to go back out and clean the virus off their system, and explain how they got the virus (worm, really, but I usually get that glazed-eye look when I explain the difference), and what they could've done to prevent it. Then I get to charge them, and explain why I'm charging them. See a pattern here?
End result: the client (end-user) is the one left hanging. If he blindly patches, he runs into problems. He blindly ignores the patches, he runs into problems. If we could only raise his level of computer literacy, he might actually have a chance to understand what the patch does, what might interfere with it, and possibly even solve the problem on his own if it occurs.
Seeing as that's very unlikely to occur, the system breaks down. Something's gotta give. Something's gotta change. Until it does, the end-user gets left hanging.
This is a great idea, right until a patch breaks something. I can't remember the exact patch, but back in April MS released a patch that messed with IE's ability to automatically correct a URL's format. Id est, "google.com" doesn't get changed to "http://www.google.com". The patch conflicted with some HP software (Share-To-Web or something like that), and broke the URL correction.
I had a couple clients (residential, not commercial, mind you) who had me correct the problem. One of these clients had ben prior customer... and I had stressed updating Windows on a regular basis. Let me tell you... that was a fun conversation. "Yes, an update to Windows broke your system. Yes, I do have to charge you for this service. Yes, I realize I told you a few months ago to make sure you updated Windows regularly. No, unfortunately I cannot fix this for free since Microsoft screwed up the patch."
As a consumer, if I purchase a DVD, I'd like to play that on whatever medium I have. I do the same with my audio cd's... why not my DVD's?
If there's something preventing me from playing it on whatever medium I'd like, then I'd say it's broken.
And if I can change it so that I can play it on whatever medium I'd like, I'd consider that repaired.
The physical property vs. intellectual isn't all that clear cut. If I take a component off a Ford engine, copy it exactly (/sarcasm/'cause I've got a large machine shop in my backyard), then start distributing it, I bet Ford's going to have something to say about it. If I want to take that GM alternator and alter the mounts so I can slap it on my old Subaru wagon, GM certainly isn't going to try to sue me.
As for the DVD, I do own the physical media on which that intellectual property is located, correct? So I should be able to place it on whatever medium I'd like to. Once again, if I start distributing it, then the owner of that intellectual property should come running with an army of lawyers behind him.
The only major difference between the two is the ease of duplication. An alternator is relatively impossible to duplicate versus the content on that DVD.
This has nothing to do with whether or not they own the product. CC is making money off of someone else's product without the permission of the copyight hodler, and without compensating them.
We keep thinking like this, and soon we're going to start shutting down independent automobile repair garages, computer repair shops, plumbers, electricians, etc... everyone else who "makes money off of someone else's product without the [explicit] permission of the copyright (can we fit patents in here too?) holder.
I still do the rebooting for games versus serious stuff... and I will probably continue. I'm a niche gamer and a Linux user, which means I'm really in the minority;o). I actually enjoy simulations, and the more realistic, the happier I am. Most of my recent gaming concerns Silent Hunter 3 (WW2 uBoat simulation), though I've been spending some time with X3-Reunion, too. Both use Starforce copyright protection, which kills my ability to play it under Cedega from what I understand.
I've got hopes for X3, since they just released a Starforce free version on Steam, and they've ported X2 over to Linux. I won't hold my breath, though.
Really? I rarely had a problem getting things past my parents when I was thirteen, they were hardly stupid or inattentive, and I was a pretty good kid.
Could be your parents didn't bother to let you know they knew, or that they suspected. Mine pulled that route... and now that I'm old enough where I can look back and laugh about it with them, it's very interesting to find out how much they knew, or suspected.
'Course, they were way off on some of their speculations/worries, but I seem to have come out of childhood mostly sane.
Even though the game Neverwinter Nights had a linux port, it didn't include video support due to the closed nature of bink.
Sometimes you get lucky, and somebody puts enough effort into discovering that it's possible. The following link provides a method to actually get the video support under NWN. It's not user friendly, but it gets the job done if you're willing to slog through it.http://home.woh.rr.com/nwmovies/
'Course, like I said, it's not friendly. At all. It's definitely not something that I'd want the average computer user undertaking, especially if they're used to "stick the CD in, and Windows autoruns the install..." *theatrical sigh*
Re:That's an okay idea, but...
on
Abandoned Games
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· Score: 1
Oh, come on... Australia seems to have turned out fairly well, considering the circumstances;o). Shame that they've got this concept of a prison (with walls and what not), rather then just sorta turnin' 'em loose and making sure nobody gets off the island.
I'd rather be banished to a nice remote South Pacific island than get stuck in some "bend 'em over" security prison any day.
Oh, lay off. Some of us forget occasionally which forum we're posting on. Admittedly, it is rather difficult to miss the default coloring, the big "Slashdot" at the top of the page, the geek advertisements, and the cheesy article icons, but...
Never mind. You're right;o)
Outside SUNY Albany last year, I stopped to help some guys standing on the side of the road. Their four door sedan (fairly new and rather expensive looking) was sitting in the right lane (not the breakdown lane). In other words, their car was blocking traffic. When I got closer, I realized they had lost a tie rod on their right front, causing the wheel to turn perpendicular to the vehicle's motion, and forcing the axle to pop out. With front wheel drive, this effectively arrested their forward motion, and there was absolutely no way it could move under its own power to the shoulder of the road. They had their hazard lights on (and blinking), but if the traffic wasn't paying attention, someone would end up swerving to switch lanes very quickly. Several cars did exactly that during the ten minutes we waited until police arrived.
Or you can go a couple years farther back... I got out of work rather late (11PM), and turned onto the four lane road on my way home. It was your typical dark, rainy night. I accelerated up to 55 mph, and happened to notice a very strange, stationary light sitting in the middle of the left lane. I couldn't make it ought very well, but appeared to be a fairly dim flashlight bulb. I erred on the side of caution, and moved over to the right lane. Just after I passed the light, I could make out a sizeable bulk behind it (keep in mind, it's extremely dark, no street lights, and it's raining). I started kicking up what I first thought was gravel at the same time... then realized it was debris. That bulk was a black car, and I was running over bits of plastic/glass/metal debris.
A few hundred feet forward was a rig pulling a trailer, parked on the side of the road. I stop, and the driver comes running back to me, saying he couldn't see them as he approached, swerved at the last second, and clipped their right rear, apparently spinning the car around and into the center guard rail, bouncing it back out into the left lane. He had already called 911 on his cell phone, so we both ran back to the car to check on everyone. The previous occupants (one male, one female) must've been fairly shocked & slightly out of their minds, because they were busy picking up debris from the middle of the road.
That light that I had first noticed had gone out by that time... if it had gone out before that, I would've slammed into it square on, doing about 55 mph. I was driving a Saturn sedan at the time. Even if I managed to come out of the collision fairly well, I'm sure that the occupants of the other car would not have... they had been standing the behind the car as I approached, and would probably have pushed the car over them after I collided. That qualifies as an emergency to me;o).
It appears that the wpa_supplicant guys are putting together a GUI. There doesn't appear to be much information on their website regarding it (such as what versions it's included in), but something's better than nothing.
...but writing a GUI for it would hardly be rocket science.
So why hasn't someone?
I set my wife's box up with both Windows and Linux (Gentoo). She's got a Linksys WUSB54G USB adapter. It runs equally well under both Windows (driver's straight from Linksys, XP's Wireless Zero Configuration service) and Linux (ndiswrapper, wpa_supplicant). The router is a plain jane WRT54G from Linksys, nothing fancy.
Took me a day or two to get ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant working together with the adapter. Then my wife complains a week later, stating that she's been knocked offline. I go over, fire up a console, and restart the wireless service (/etc/init.d/net.wlan0 restart). It connects perfectly fine.
When this happens in Windows, she already knew enough to open the wireless icon in the system tray, and reconnect. Using the graphical interface. In Linux, she had no clue. Nor does she have any desire to hop in the console to fix the problem...
I ended up kludging a fix... cron job that pings the router every couple minutes and restarts the wireless service if it can't connect to the router. That fixed the problem from that point forward, but it's beside the point... she's an average user who could handle the problem adequately well because WinXP gave her a graphical interface that she could understand. Linux couldn't. She couldn't even see the current status of the network connectivity in Linux.
I have very little in the way of programming skill, and none in GUI (Windows or X). Otherwise I'd slap something together myself, if it's so easy. But if it is so easy, why haven't we created one yet?
I sure would like to see the ability to scan for networks, too... haven't seen that functionality in wpa_supplicant or any other wireless networking tool. If they exist, feel free to point 'em out to me.
...Where is the Linux Geek Squad? Yea all those scan-disk, defrag, run adaware and scan for virus "techies" give me the creeps but they seem to fill a need. Where can the mythical grandmother go to get a DVD installed in her Linux box or find out how to fix Thunderbird if the mail folder blows up?...
Actually, there are (more than) a few of us in that Geek Squad who would be perfectly happy providing Linux support. It'll probably never happen... it's great that there are those of us who are technically literate enough to be comfortable working with Linux, but I can't see a nationwide company providing Linux support piecemeal. I'd rather expect them to expect each and every tech they've got working for them to be competent in Linux... which ain't gonna happen. Why? I wouldn't want to be put in charge of bringing all these "scan-disk, defrag, run adaware and scan for virus 'techies'" up to speed in Linux. Can't imagine giving the order, too, or explaining to your shareholders why you're spending such a massive amount of money training tech's on a operating system with such a small marketshare (in residential homes, at least).
Slashdot Mirror
Or to cut off net access for any Windows PCs?
;oD
Boy, wouldn't that be ironic...
Not necessarily. I'll still go see the artists live, where (hopefully) more/most of my money is ending up in their pockets. Furthermore, if there's an artist that's good enough for me, I'll have no problems hunting down some legal way to get their music, making sure they get compensated for it. Especially if they're not signed with the RIAA members.
I'd like to think there's enough people out there like me to make a difference. Maybe there isn't. Maybe there is.
Seriously though, it's Microsoft's product - they have right to decide what's done with it.
Really? So if I buy a car from Subaru, Subaru has a right to decide that I can only drive on major highways, and not on dirt roads? Or if I buy a toaster from GE, GE has a right to decide what bread I'm allowed to toast in it?
I'd really not rather have a company place artificial limitations on what I can do with their product once its gets into my hands, thank you very much. I had a fit when HP decided to take extra efforts to make sure that their lower end printer models couldn't be shared across a network via normal Windows printer sharing... they tried to force the customer into buying their higher end model with built-in networking. Most of my clients were rather irritated at HP once I let them know, too. MS wants to pull the same game, not a problem... and when my clients get irritated at MS, I'll be more than happy to suggest alternatives.
I thought microwave ovens popped corn by heating a thin packet of oil/butter/etc, which in turn heats and pops the kernels.
Yeah... welcome to my nightmares. Fairly sure that if the RIAA could get copyright infringement officialy declared a sin, they'd have already done it, so I think I'm ok ;o).
...but once you have two copies of the movie, why keep them both?...
It's nice to have a backup copy around?
Yeah, I know... just make a backup copy of the first copy, then turn around and sell the original/master. Some of us prefer being honest, though. Helps us sleep at night. And on the off chance that there's a big guy with a big list of our mistakes/sins waiting for us in the afterlife, it might help.
I need a copy of OpenOffice now, on my P3-600 laptop with 384 MB of RAM. I can't afford to wait the two/three days it's gonna take OO to compile. So I install the openoffice-bin package (binary, mind you), do whatever it is that I've got to do, then set the laptop up to install the "from source" openoffice package when I get my next three day weekend.
Mind you, this doesn't bother me, mainly 'cause the last thing I'm going to want to do on my three day weekend is touch anything computer related. Lock me in a room with a set of books and some light classical music in the background. Or rent a cabin for me up in the middle of the Adirondacks, preferably without any electricity or other "modern amenities". Will I care that OO is taking 3 days to compile? Heck no. Just don't make me wait for it.
Not to karma whore or anything, but the Gentoo wiki has a nice tip on dispatch-conf here.
And thanks for pointing this out... I've always used etc-update, and never known about a possible replacement for it.
"Stable is too far behind" !?
;o)
Mind elaborating on this one a bit? I've been tempted to start playing around with a distro other than Gentoo, probably (K)Ubuntu... but I do hear this same complaint quite often. On Gentoo, I stick with the stable packages for the most part, and if something's too far behind, I unmask it and work with the "unstable" version. This usually works perfectly fine for me (with the one notable exception of Scorched3d & OpenAl... I'm getting horrible static).
Not that I'm trying to attack you, keep in mind... I'm genuinely curious. And I wouldn't mind if you detailed the update process for Ubuntu... I've been spoiled by that "emerge -uDv world", I suppose
...Hours later, after filling him with coffe and water, they deny him use of the bathroom. They get their confession after hours of interrogation...
I would seriously have to ask why the "detainee" is bothered enough by being forced to hold his urine to actually confess to a crime he didn't commit. If I were in his place, I'd simply piss on the floor. I assume this would open me up to being arrested for some other crime (probably public urination, but I'd argue that it wasn't public), but I'd much rather be accused of a crime that I did commit than a crime I did not. Especially a crime that I could argue I was forced into, by the police. Don't they consider that entrapment?
So let's play the other side: I tell the client not to install any patch without explicitly finding out what the patch corrects and ensuring that it will not damage his computer (with regards to software, not that many of my clients would be able to tell the difference). Most of my clients do not have the patience nor the time to research each patch. Of those that do, most would not be able to understand exactly what the patch does. Following that, most of my clients will not install the patches.
So when the next Blaster/Welchia-like worm hits, they haven't downloaded the patch 'cause they listened to me... and then I get to go back out and clean the virus off their system, and explain how they got the virus (worm, really, but I usually get that glazed-eye look when I explain the difference), and what they could've done to prevent it. Then I get to charge them, and explain why I'm charging them. See a pattern here?
End result: the client (end-user) is the one left hanging. If he blindly patches, he runs into problems. He blindly ignores the patches, he runs into problems. If we could only raise his level of computer literacy, he might actually have a chance to understand what the patch does, what might interfere with it, and possibly even solve the problem on his own if it occurs.
Seeing as that's very unlikely to occur, the system breaks down. Something's gotta give. Something's gotta change. Until it does, the end-user gets left hanging.
This is a great idea, right until a patch breaks something. I can't remember the exact patch, but back in April MS released a patch that messed with IE's ability to automatically correct a URL's format. Id est, "google.com" doesn't get changed to "http://www.google.com". The patch conflicted with some HP software (Share-To-Web or something like that), and broke the URL correction.
I had a couple clients (residential, not commercial, mind you) who had me correct the problem. One of these clients had ben prior customer... and I had stressed updating Windows on a regular basis. Let me tell you... that was a fun conversation. "Yes, an update to Windows broke your system. Yes, I do have to charge you for this service. Yes, I realize I told you a few months ago to make sure you updated Windows regularly. No, unfortunately I cannot fix this for free since Microsoft screwed up the patch."
Danged if you do, darned if you don't...
Anonymous Coward? You mean you couldn't be arsed to log in? ;op
As a consumer, if I purchase a DVD, I'd like to play that on whatever medium I have. I do the same with my audio cd's... why not my DVD's?
If there's something preventing me from playing it on whatever medium I'd like, then I'd say it's broken.
And if I can change it so that I can play it on whatever medium I'd like, I'd consider that repaired.
The physical property vs. intellectual isn't all that clear cut. If I take a component off a Ford engine, copy it exactly (/sarcasm/'cause I've got a large machine shop in my backyard), then start distributing it, I bet Ford's going to have something to say about it. If I want to take that GM alternator and alter the mounts so I can slap it on my old Subaru wagon, GM certainly isn't going to try to sue me.
As for the DVD, I do own the physical media on which that intellectual property is located, correct? So I should be able to place it on whatever medium I'd like to. Once again, if I start distributing it, then the owner of that intellectual property should come running with an army of lawyers behind him.
The only major difference between the two is the ease of duplication. An alternator is relatively impossible to duplicate versus the content on that DVD.
This has nothing to do with whether or not they own the product. CC is making money off of someone else's product without the permission of the copyight hodler, and without compensating them.
We keep thinking like this, and soon we're going to start shutting down independent automobile repair garages, computer repair shops, plumbers, electricians, etc... everyone else who "makes money off of someone else's product without the [explicit] permission of the copyright (can we fit patents in here too?) holder.
I still do the rebooting for games versus serious stuff... and I will probably continue. I'm a niche gamer and a Linux user, which means I'm really in the minority ;o). I actually enjoy simulations, and the more realistic, the happier I am. Most of my recent gaming concerns Silent Hunter 3 (WW2 uBoat simulation), though I've been spending some time with X3-Reunion, too. Both use Starforce copyright protection, which kills my ability to play it under Cedega from what I understand.
I've got hopes for X3, since they just released a Starforce free version on Steam, and they've ported X2 over to Linux. I won't hold my breath, though.
Really? I rarely had a problem getting things past my parents when I was thirteen, they were hardly stupid or inattentive, and I was a pretty good kid.
Could be your parents didn't bother to let you know they knew, or that they suspected. Mine pulled that route... and now that I'm old enough where I can look back and laugh about it with them, it's very interesting to find out how much they knew, or suspected.
'Course, they were way off on some of their speculations/worries, but I seem to have come out of childhood mostly sane.
Even though the game Neverwinter Nights had a linux port, it didn't include video support due to the closed nature of bink.
Sometimes you get lucky, and somebody puts enough effort into discovering that it's possible. The following link provides a method to actually get the video support under NWN. It's not user friendly, but it gets the job done if you're willing to slog through it.http://home.woh.rr.com/nwmovies/
'Course, like I said, it's not friendly. At all. It's definitely not something that I'd want the average computer user undertaking, especially if they're used to "stick the CD in, and Windows autoruns the install..." *theatrical sigh*
Port it.
Oh, come on... Australia seems to have turned out fairly well, considering the circumstances ;o). Shame that they've got this concept of a prison (with walls and what not), rather then just sorta turnin' 'em loose and making sure nobody gets off the island.
I'd rather be banished to a nice remote South Pacific island than get stuck in some "bend 'em over" security prison any day.
Oh, lay off. Some of us forget occasionally which forum we're posting on. Admittedly, it is rather difficult to miss the default coloring, the big "Slashdot" at the top of the page, the geek advertisements, and the cheesy article icons, but... Never mind. You're right ;o)
Outside SUNY Albany last year, I stopped to help some guys standing on the side of the road. Their four door sedan (fairly new and rather expensive looking) was sitting in the right lane (not the breakdown lane). In other words, their car was blocking traffic. When I got closer, I realized they had lost a tie rod on their right front, causing the wheel to turn perpendicular to the vehicle's motion, and forcing the axle to pop out. With front wheel drive, this effectively arrested their forward motion, and there was absolutely no way it could move under its own power to the shoulder of the road. They had their hazard lights on (and blinking), but if the traffic wasn't paying attention, someone would end up swerving to switch lanes very quickly. Several cars did exactly that during the ten minutes we waited until police arrived.
;o).
Or you can go a couple years farther back... I got out of work rather late (11PM), and turned onto the four lane road on my way home. It was your typical dark, rainy night. I accelerated up to 55 mph, and happened to notice a very strange, stationary light sitting in the middle of the left lane. I couldn't make it ought very well, but appeared to be a fairly dim flashlight bulb. I erred on the side of caution, and moved over to the right lane. Just after I passed the light, I could make out a sizeable bulk behind it (keep in mind, it's extremely dark, no street lights, and it's raining). I started kicking up what I first thought was gravel at the same time... then realized it was debris. That bulk was a black car, and I was running over bits of plastic/glass/metal debris.
A few hundred feet forward was a rig pulling a trailer, parked on the side of the road. I stop, and the driver comes running back to me, saying he couldn't see them as he approached, swerved at the last second, and clipped their right rear, apparently spinning the car around and into the center guard rail, bouncing it back out into the left lane. He had already called 911 on his cell phone, so we both ran back to the car to check on everyone. The previous occupants (one male, one female) must've been fairly shocked & slightly out of their minds, because they were busy picking up debris from the middle of the road.
That light that I had first noticed had gone out by that time... if it had gone out before that, I would've slammed into it square on, doing about 55 mph. I was driving a Saturn sedan at the time. Even if I managed to come out of the collision fairly well, I'm sure that the occupants of the other car would not have... they had been standing the behind the car as I approached, and would probably have pushed the car over them after I collided. That qualifies as an emergency to me
My apologies for replying to myself, but...
It appears that the wpa_supplicant guys are putting together a GUI. There doesn't appear to be much information on their website regarding it (such as what versions it's included in), but something's better than nothing.
...but writing a GUI for it would hardly be rocket science.
So why hasn't someone?
I set my wife's box up with both Windows and Linux (Gentoo). She's got a Linksys WUSB54G USB adapter. It runs equally well under both Windows (driver's straight from Linksys, XP's Wireless Zero Configuration service) and Linux (ndiswrapper, wpa_supplicant). The router is a plain jane WRT54G from Linksys, nothing fancy.
Took me a day or two to get ndiswrapper and wpa_supplicant working together with the adapter. Then my wife complains a week later, stating that she's been knocked offline. I go over, fire up a console, and restart the wireless service (/etc/init.d/net.wlan0 restart). It connects perfectly fine.
When this happens in Windows, she already knew enough to open the wireless icon in the system tray, and reconnect. Using the graphical interface. In Linux, she had no clue. Nor does she have any desire to hop in the console to fix the problem...
I ended up kludging a fix... cron job that pings the router every couple minutes and restarts the wireless service if it can't connect to the router. That fixed the problem from that point forward, but it's beside the point... she's an average user who could handle the problem adequately well because WinXP gave her a graphical interface that she could understand. Linux couldn't. She couldn't even see the current status of the network connectivity in Linux.
I have very little in the way of programming skill, and none in GUI (Windows or X). Otherwise I'd slap something together myself, if it's so easy. But if it is so easy, why haven't we created one yet?
I sure would like to see the ability to scan for networks, too... haven't seen that functionality in wpa_supplicant or any other wireless networking tool. If they exist, feel free to point 'em out to me.
...Where is the Linux Geek Squad? Yea all those scan-disk, defrag, run adaware and scan for virus "techies" give me the creeps but they seem to fill a need. Where can the mythical grandmother go to get a DVD installed in her Linux box or find out how to fix Thunderbird if the mail folder blows up?...
Actually, there are (more than) a few of us in that Geek Squad who would be perfectly happy providing Linux support. It'll probably never happen... it's great that there are those of us who are technically literate enough to be comfortable working with Linux, but I can't see a nationwide company providing Linux support piecemeal. I'd rather expect them to expect each and every tech they've got working for them to be competent in Linux... which ain't gonna happen. Why? I wouldn't want to be put in charge of bringing all these "scan-disk, defrag, run adaware and scan for virus 'techies'" up to speed in Linux. Can't imagine giving the order, too, or explaining to your shareholders why you're spending such a massive amount of money training tech's on a operating system with such a small marketshare (in residential homes, at least).