The battle for wireless connectivity continues.  The mystery of the system crashes is at least revealed, if not understood.  A blog by Alvonsius indicated there is a package on the Karmic Koala install disk that will enable Broadcom adapters:  bcmwl-kernel-source.   I had installed it (from web archives, not the disk) on Saturday, which instigated the video lockups (go figure!). Last night, I rediscovered this helpful hint and applied it, upon which the system crashed a few minutes after logging in.

OK, back to single-user (recovery) mode, remove the offending package, and reboot.  The system is once more stable.  Now, the next step is to remove the driver obtained directly from Broadcom and the scripts that load it, and try again with the Ubuntu package.  Now, the other day, when the crashing and burning started, it was some time after unsuccessfully trying the bcmwl package on an updated system, so the fix was not quite so obvious.

Meanwhile, I am getting a lot of flack from other members of the household about choosing to use a “one-off” system like Linux.  Now, these are professional people, but not computer people.  Like most of the world, they don’t seem to understand that a computer system isn’t just a single machine, but a system representing an entire population of generations of software writers, so its behavior is just as unpredictable in specific instances as that of an unruly crowd.  The world of Microsoft and Windows is more or less totalitarian, so that users’ actions are restricted and the shortcomings of the system are hidden behind barriers of state secrecy.  In the Open Systems world, there is a lot more freedom, but there also isn’t always a cop around when you need one.  But, then, you do have the option to take matters into your own hands and deal with the problem.  Which is OK if you have the tools and knowledge it takes.  On the other hand, in the world of proprietary software, the danger is much like that in totalitarian societies: if you are being beaten and robbed, it is no use calling the police–they are already there.