Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
I have been using linux for the last 7 years, the first five as a dual-boot with Windows, and the last two solely dependent on Ubuntu. In the early days, I tried Redhat, Fedora and with the live CDs, I have now completely shifted to Ubuntu. Being a doctor by profession, this was an odd combination (as many others found it nauseating to take the bitter pill and stay on the learning curve), but I always managed to find an alternative to the Windows software others used. The simplicity, stability, and good reliable updates, and the trustworthy community, always were the blessings for me to stay on the track. As my previous laptop died after 6 years of service (HP 9000 series), I bought a new one last year. This is a Dell 3521, coming with Intel core i3, 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM, hybrid graphics with AMD RADEON 7670M and Intel HD Graphics 4000 and Dell wireless 1704 (manufactured by Broadcom). This came preinstalled with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS so I kept it that way.
From the beginning, the wireless didn’t seem to function well. But I usually used a 3G dongle to connect to internet. So the wireless didn’t give me a problem in the early days. Once I bought my new Smartphone, I couldn’t connect it to the laptop via Bluetooth or wireless. Then I started to troubleshoot. After doing a thorough literature search in the community support, I started with reinstalling network manager, tried with different managers and then handled the drivers. I tried with reinstalling the existing ones, and then tried different suggestions given by the community. On one fine day, when I was trying to fix it with drivers, the wireless suddenly disappeared from the list. (I am so sorry I cannot post the link to the thread here, as I lost it with system reinstallation). I tried with “lspci” several times, and with reinstallation of default factory drivers. And then I tried with a live boot, but the result was the same. I decided to hand over the job to the shop where I bought the laptop, as the laptop was still in the warranty period.
What they did was installation of a trial version of Windows 7 and installation of drivers! And the wireless is working!! And I could do all the stuff I wanted. I felt bad about the situation. Why that happened and why we couldn’t solve the situation by ourselves is the main question I have so far. Why did we have a long term support system if we couldn’t tackle problems for the next four years? And it would have been easy if we categorized and ranked the community threads. I’m still using the trial version, and waiting impatiently to install 14.04. I wish everything would go fine and I could get rid of Windows. It’s always a bad dream to go back to Windows.