I just set a customer up with a USB 3G adapter from AT&T, and I don't remember the Connection Manager install being as bad as I expected, although it did take awhile. Since the connection was for a small office in a rural area (no cable or DSL, so 3G, satellite, and dialup were the only options), I set them up with a Netgear 3G router. No more AT&T software needed, and the owner can use his laptop on the wireless network, in addition to the desktop computer it was originally intended for.

So, you don't always need the dumb software.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda