If you read between the lines of this blog, you already know of my recent switch to Ubuntu.
About a month ago, when I still used Debian, the WLAN functionality of my Centrino notebook did not work out of the box. In fact, one of the reasons for the switch was, that Network Manager did not compile on my Debian system. During my day to day work, I often need to connect to different networks – wireless and hardwired – and it always is a pain to configure everything correctly by hand. So Network Manager would have been both very useful and productive. On Ubuntu, I didn’t even need to compile Network Manager, it was availlable as a preconfigured package.
About a month ago, when I still used Debian, I was in need of a testbed. Today I used the WLAN network of my sailing club. And it works. I just switched on my notebook and it really was like Network Manager promised: It really was painfree networking. Just after bootup, I switched on my WLAN antenna and Network Manager immediately found our WLAN network and asked me if I wanted to connect to it, because I had not connected to the network before. After I accepted, Network Manager configured the network options automatically and connected me to the network. On the next bootup, it didn’t even ask, if I wanted to connect. It just found out, that I still had no hardwired connection and used my clubs network automatically. In short: I got the configuration-comfort of Windows (and it is easier than a default Debian installation in regard of wireless network management) together with the stability of Linux.
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