Have some time on your hands?
Today is my last vacation day. Two days ago, I decided to start my not so yearly ritual of installing Linux and giving it a run. I have to admit, I usually get frustrated trying to get all of my devices functioning and throw in the towel early. I use various Linux utilities for password recovery or pen testing, but I have not had much luck with getting an entire system functioning. This year however, I accomplished the mission. Well, at least for getting all of my devices working with Linux, the relaxing while on vacation part is right out. I was even able to use ndiswrapper to get my wireless card working with a little of trial and error, and a modified kernel. Getting the wireless card functioning was half the battle, installing WPA, and AES was the other half. I would of had it working sooner, if I would have followed the instructions exactly and not used the latest WPA supplement. All in all, it took me two days to get everything working, from the install to posting this blog piece. I installed fedora FC4 and I have to say that Linux has come along way since I first tried to use it some years back. I am very impressed with some applications, while other aspects are behind the times a bit. There are some security tools and utilities that I will need Linux for, in order to use them, so I will probably keep a Linux box around the house. I still do not see Linux going mainstream. Maybe you cant teach an old dog new tricks, but Linux is still not very friendly for the average user. The process of compiling applications before installing them on the system with the added effort of reading the not so standard readme's in order to determine all of the prerequisites before the install, will root out most of us lazy windows users. The second problem is that finding devices that function "out of the box" is very difficult. When I realized that it was probably going to take more time to get my wireless card functioning than it would cost me to get a compatible card with Linux drivers, I went shopping. I was in for a rude awakening though. It seems that Best Buy, nor Staples carries wireless cards with Linux drivers in the box. I even went as far as getting the “weird haired teen” that worked at Best Buy to show me the loop hole in the Best Buy computer image that allowed me to check the vendor sites for Linux drivers. Nogo. At this point, I was determined to make it work this time, and that is what it took.. TIME. I just don't envision the average user going as far as I did to make Linux work. Microsoft is safe for now, of coarse I do know a Microsoft die hard that is saying of good things about his MAC. Well, I guess I will wrap up this post on my Linux box, and go grab a beer......