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Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

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Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#121

Post by yarcob »

exmadscientist wrote: post #104
slig wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you using a USB-C dongle? That is known to cause issues with things operating in the 2.4GHz spectrum (such as Bluetooth and your keyboard dongle).

It's not so much the Type C connector causing the problem but rather the high data rates of SuperSpeed USB (or whichever one it is that causes the trouble; I can't keep track of the USB-IF's recent garbage). So Type A (9-pin) connectors are vulnerable as well. But given that a BT or BTLE dongle can't really run very fast, I doubt they're using anything above USB HS (480Mbps) and therefore unlikely to interfere at 2.4…

Yeah, the dongles themselves work fine, it's other USB 3 devices that cause the problem (eg. hard drives or USB 3 hubs).

Bluetooth is also affected by the interference. The advantage of a dongle is that you can use an extension cable and move the transmitter away from whatever is causing the interference.

Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#123

Post by marcosscriven »

yarcob wrote: post #120
55555 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They always seem to come with a dongle just incase though, and sometimes people use the dongle despite having bluetooth, or plug them in and then connect to the computer's built-in bluetooth.

The problem with Bluetooth is that it just doesn't work well when you want to use one keyboard or mouse with multiple computers. For this reason I prefer the dongles. Want to use your mouse on a different Mac? Just plug the dongle in a different computer. I don't know how often I ended up at the password prompt with no way to type the password because the keyboard didn't connect, or was connected to a different Mac,…

This is why I like the Logitech MX keys/mouse. Can have multiple dongles and just press a button to choose which one you connect to.

Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#124

Post by ultrarunner »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #114
roody15 wrote: post #61

Leopard = meh Snow Leopard = Awesome Lion = meh Yosemite = ok Sierra = good High Sierra = Awesome Mojave = meh Catalina = meh Big Sur = meh (snow leopard and high sierra were the best IMO) Mac Admin for 15 years

The Snow Leopard days of the Mac made me want one. Everything since then has been a disappointment. I miss the big little details like the Welcome intros and beautiful usage of CoreAnimation. Now it seems like nothing uses it, and macOS seems far far less magical than ever. I could never see Apple coming up with the original Time Machine design anymore.

QuartzComposer was really impressive and enabled a bunch of really useful applications (as far as data-driven graphic displays go). And now it's just… gone.

Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#125

Post by jablan »

konart wrote: post #108
toinetoine wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in the same boat until summer of 2020. Switched to ubuntu 20.04 w/ gnome desktop on my home laptop and haven't looked back.

I have Fedora 33-34 with gnome (initially with KDE as a I was a fan back in my Ubuntu\Arch days) and I only keep it to install updates from time to time to see if it is as usable for a general use as macOS. Still nowhere near. Perfect for coding though.

"general use" => "my specific usage needs" please.

Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#126

Post by gspr »

nwallin wrote: post #54
cptskippy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadcom chips aren't very well regarded in PC Gaming or Server enthusiast markets either, they're a step above Realtek. Oddly Intel is well regarded though... It mostly comes down to drivers from what I understand but I'm not entirely familiar with all the objections.

I would much rather have a realtek or intel controller than a broadcom one. My thinkpad has a realtek, my last laptop (an xps13) had an intel controller, and they just worked without issue. Admittedly it's been a while since I had a broadcom controller, but I had all sorts of problems with it. Random disconnects etc.

I long ago realized that just buying an Intel wifi card and replacing whatever crap my laptop ships with is totally worth it. (At least many 15" laptops ship with replaceable cards, don't know about smaller ones).

Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#127

Post by daat678 »

my123 wrote: post #3

Interesting that Apple still uses Broadcom Wi-Fi + BT chips in most of their product range despite lots of issues with them. Apple Watch nowadays is using Apple (codenamed Marconi) Wi-Fi + BT chips, hopefully they'll switch all their product lineup to those.

Would you have a link or article discussing this Marconi project? I’m always interested in Apple’s wireless chips designs.

A web search brings me back to this thread.

Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#128

Post by Reason077 »

kalleboo wrote: post #69
gumby wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the recent phones (X or 11?) used Intel for part of its builds (as far as I remember you couldn’t tell from serial number). Apple had a lot of problems and swore off the Intel parts, which killed Intel’s wireless business. I assumed Apple bought the Intel product line for IP, especially after that episode.

Apple used Intel modems for many generations - the iPhone 7, X/8, XS, 11. For some generations they used Qualcomm chips in the models for CDMA regions since Intel didn't make a CDMA modem. So you could tell which chip you'd get from the iPhone model number. Apple ditched Intel due to Intel being at least a year behind on 5G. These modems were all LTE modems though. They've always used separate Broadcom chips for WiFi…

> "For some generations they used Qualcomm chips in the models for CDMA regions since Intel didn't make a CDMA modem."

Yeah. The Qualcomm-equipped international version of the iPhone X notoriously got significantly better LTE speeds compared to the Intel-modem version sold in UK/Europe.

Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#129

Post by grishka »

roody15 wrote: post #61

Leopard = meh Snow Leopard = Awesome Lion = meh Yosemite = ok Sierra = good High Sierra = Awesome Mojave = meh Catalina = meh Big Sur = meh (snow leopard and high sierra were the best IMO) Mac Admin for 15 years

High Sierra was meh for me. They rewrote the window server to use Metal, but the Nvidia GPU driver was so terrible at it that it sometimes crashed and it was always sluggish. You literally got a performance boost when you switched to the integrated GPU. They fixed most of the issues with Nvidia in Mojave tho. It still leaks memory but at least it's usable.

And I agree that you skipped Mavericks (10.9), it was one of the best releases. I used it for like 3 years but had to update to whatever was current at the end of 2016 because I got a new job and needed the latest Xcode for it.

Re: Wi-Fi packet capturing on M1 Macs is broken

#130

Post by CrLf »

philistine wrote: post #103
Nextgrid wrote: post #5

Big Sur has been a significant drop in quality, even worse than Catalina. Some are bugs such as this one and some are just deliberately stupid design decisions like the changes to the notifications. I’m worried for the future of the Mac.

With the two previous transitions, Apple went through all sorts of weird pains. This time is no different, but unfortunately they still have to release yearly and implement the macOS version of each new service.

"Apple went through all sorts of weird pains"

Surely you mean Apple's customers went through all sorts of weird pains.

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