I just finished updating my laptop from Ubuntu 7.10 to the new Ubuntu 8.04 release.  All went well except for one thing.  In addition to many other improvements, Ubuntu 8.04 installed a new version (2.6.24-16) of the Linux kernel.  Now this would seem to be a good thing.  But, once again a Linux distribution failed my "Ready for Prime Time" test...which is to provide me with a working 802.11b/g, or "Wi-Fi," interface with little or no pain my part.

For the last month or so, I've been working at home for a change.  So my laptop has been on vacation for a while.  I decided today that I had better fire it up and get it online before the queue of pending updates from Microsoft became any longer.  I booted to the Win XP partition and as expected there were about 12 or so critical updates from Microsoft's latest monthly "Patch Tuesday" waiting to have their way with my laptop.  So, I once again let the Microsoft updater run amok and fix all those things it thought was broken.  Once the "Patch-O-Rama" completed, I figured I had better boot up the laptop's alter ego (Ubuntu) to make sure the Linux partition was not too upset from the lack of attention I had been giving it these past few weeks...

Unbuntu loaded and all was well.  I checked a couple of web sites I had recently made some cosmetic changes to in order to make sure they displayed as expected with Linux and Firefox.  And I noticed the "updates available" icon was trying to get my attention.  I checked the updates and to my surprise there were 44 updates available, 22 of which were security updates!

Is this an anomaly or is Ubuntu on a mission to take the world record for patches per month away from Microsoft? ;-)