Comment 2 for bug 344852

I'm running Kubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 2. Seriously... every install I've done since Jaunty has taken me literally HOURS to get network connectivity to behave - first because my wired network is configured in /etc/network/interfaces as "manual" so KNetworkManager can't see it, and then because wireless won't connect to my AP (128-bit WEP, shared key, using a string instead of hex), and last because I don't know how the heck to get it so that I have a network connection before anyone's logged in!

Eventually I remember to edit /etc/network/interfaces, and then eventually I remember that I need to enter the WEP key in hex (even though it claims string will work)... but I've never found a solution for this one.

Think of it like this: *ubuntu has become kinda synonymous with "desktop Linux" these days. Stuff like networking being broken "out of the box" is part of why people keep talking like "wait, no, *this* is the year of the Linux desktop...!" Until a clean install Just Works(tm) for the vast majority of people, it ain't that year yet.

(All that said, this is IMHO one of the only things left preventing that...)