I was actually very pleasently surprised when Ubuntu became the first (and only to this point) distro to detect, install, and configure my wireless card without my help. What's more, this is all on my old Titanium PowerBook where I've only had limited success before getting everything to work with Debian and Gentoo. I mean, this thing even suspends itself when I close the lid...without me having to do anything to get it that way. Ubuntu's "just works" philosophy is what makes me a believer, and I'm very much looking forward to the final release.
No, it doesn't mean you will have to authenticate with PPPoE. You can also get DSL service that does not require PPPoE, just probably not from a *bell. Just take a look at service you can get from resellers of NewEdge. (I do _not_ work for this company, but I do have one of their lines -- 786 SDSL for around 100 bucks in rural Arkansas)
But opening up cable is a bit more difficult that DSL. With DSL, an company can rent space in the ILEC's central office to put some DSLAMs and purchase the circuits that go to the end users as well. So the competitors are not *really* sharing the lines, they are renting them -- and everything is seperated.
With cable all competitors would be sharing the physical media. Could you imagine the support headache this would cause? X company could always blame Y company for all problems. There is only so much frequency on a shared medium to go around, so who would decide who gets allocated what amount? Everything could not be kept so seperate as with DSL.
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I was actually very pleasently surprised when Ubuntu became the first (and only to this point) distro to detect, install, and configure my wireless card without my help. What's more, this is all on my old Titanium PowerBook where I've only had limited success before getting everything to work with Debian and Gentoo. I mean, this thing even suspends itself when I close the lid...without me having to do anything to get it that way. Ubuntu's "just works" philosophy is what makes me a believer, and I'm very much looking forward to the final release.
No, it doesn't mean you will have to authenticate with PPPoE. You can also get DSL service that does not require PPPoE, just probably not from a *bell. Just take a look at service you can get from resellers of NewEdge. (I do _not_ work for this company, but I do have one of their lines -- 786 SDSL for around 100 bucks in rural Arkansas)
But opening up cable is a bit more difficult that DSL. With DSL, an company can rent space in the ILEC's central office to put some DSLAMs and purchase the circuits that go to the end users as well. So the competitors are not *really* sharing the lines, they are renting them -- and everything is seperated.
With cable all competitors would be sharing the physical media. Could you imagine the support headache this would cause? X company could always blame Y company for all problems. There is only so much frequency on a shared medium to go around, so who would decide who gets allocated what amount? Everything could not be kept so seperate as with DSL.
I see it as creating a very big mess.
Hey, we could even call it preemptive unilateral military action. Oh, wait a minute, no it can't be...what the hell, let's call it anyway.