Ubuntu netbook edition… Not for amateurs

So this afternoon I was at a friend’s house trying to get his ubuntu netbook working with a broadband dongle. It just refused to connect, and on failure displayed a notification dialog that basically read ‘did not work’. Once this dialog appears, the only way to reattempt a connection is to unplug and replug the broadband dongle, as ‘networkmanager’ disables the connection when it fails.
There were logs – the fine syslog.log file, which is almost completely useless for diagnosing the failure in the connection – it seems to be telling me that the connection succeeded, but then was immediately disconnected. About as useful as a slap in the face with a wet haddock.
armed with my iPhone I first attempted to ensure that the connection details were correct. The management tool added the settings, so I immediately did not trust them. Google pointed out some options, but every time the connection failed there was another 30+ second delay unplugging, replugging and reentering the PIN (it ignored the pin option in the network manager configuration).
I fired up my laptop running Windows. It installed the management tool, I looked at the settings, shouted at both the Internet and the ubuntu configuration, both of which were telling complete lies about the settings. Here’s a hint for all you mobile broadband providers – make the settings easily findable using google – there is a lot of outdated and completely invalid information out there that makes this an issue.
so, ultimately, a problem that I struggled with for quite a while under ubuntu was solved in less that 30 seconds under windows, and yet another reason why I think that NetworkManager is a thing of satanic horror that makes using computers under Linux a complete pain in the arse. This ‘solution’ is probably the singularly worst example of dumbing down configuration to the point when something goes wrong, it is practically impossible to diagnose or fix the problem.
In this case, I will have to say… progressive disclosure is a good potential solution to complicated user interfaces. The complete excision of all forms of configuration into the magical tool of automagic only works if it works all the time, and as a friend is fond of saying “If you design a system that it cannot fail then the first thing that happens is that it will.”