Re: Why cling to old X10?

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

Neil Cherry <njc@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>IMnsHO,( ;-) X10 is dieing but it just hasn't realized it yet (or
>maybe they have and are just milking it to death). They have no new or
>improved products in relation to their HA line of products. Instead
>they seem to be focusing on the wireless / entertainment aspect of
>their product line. I beleive that Z-Wave, Insteon and/or UPB will
>overtake X10. We're starting to see a lot of new products from all
>three. Also the price of these new products is comparable with X10, at
>least the Insteon seems to be. Give that these new products are more
>reliable I think we'll see more of them being sold. What is really
>needed is an application where these products are more fool proof.
>That way the average consumer can use them.  I'm not too certain we'll
>see that but I was impressed with the Linux MCE (
>http://www.linuxmce.com/ ) video (
>http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2176025602905109829&hl=en ) I
>saw. It made it seem like the setup was very easy to use.

But Ubuntu (and I presume Kubuntu) is still not really ready for the average
user. At least one fool found it isn't foolproof.

About a year ago I downloaded the .iso for Ubuntu 6.06, burned a CD,
installed it on a laptop without any problems and when it booted it happily
connected to my neighbor's unsecured wireless access point (where I could
see their tax returns) and connect to the internet. I was impressed
(although not with their tax returns). When I tried to conect to my secured
wireless access point - no dice. I found thousands of conflicting "How To"
pages. When one "how to"  even killed my wired connectivity, I removed
Ubuntu.

A few weeks ago I decided to try again with Ubuntu 7.04. I downloaded 7-8
copies of the .iso before getting one to validate. The software they
recommended for burning the CD destroyed three CD-RWs. I used the burner
built-in to XP and successfully burned the CD which I could see but which
would not boot. I ordered a DVD from Amazon. It booted but froze halfway
through the install. I started over with the same results. I started over
and chose the "Install using text" option which went OK except I didn't know
which wireless access point (wifi0 or ath0) it found was mine and picked the
wrong one (it said no DHCP). I started over, picked the other one (got DHCP)
and it installed the right drivers for my D-Link DWL-G650 card but I could
not connect until finding, manually installing and configuring Net Manager
(which the docs claimed was installed automatically). I now can connect to
my secure WAP and it only took about 4 weeks of near constant effort.

All this so that now that I've found a reliable, no minimum, source for the
64KB EEPROM needed, I can resume developing roZetta and offer a Linux
version. But I'm not about to offer assistance for anyone wanting to install
Ubuntu. :(