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The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

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Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#51

Post by frik »

ploxiln wrote: post #11

I stopped using NetworkManager years ago, I just use wpa_supplicant and dhcpcd directly (well I use the systemd services for these so they're started automatically). I also always name the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks differently, and connect explicitly to the one I want. Yes it would be great if NetworkManager did the right things automatically, but the task might be impossible due to hardware and driver quirks. WiFi ch…

I use wpa_supplicant on Raspberry Pi. It works fine even with bad WiFi signal, though I have trouble with Samba client. It forgets to reconnect to SMB server every few weeks after dozens of WiFi reconnects. Tracking down the issue and filing a bug is a bit complicated (automated embedded device, WiFi signal noise, etc).

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#52

Post by clarry »

pwnna wrote: post #48
sandGorgon wrote: post #27

Copy paste, printing and networking. Biggest usability misses of Linux. I don't consider these technical issues...but usability issues. Things like insisting on keeping the install ISO at 750 mb, leaves seamless driver support out of the todo list because...hey, there are no drivers anyway. I'm really surprised there is not a paid version of Linux with these features baked in. I would GLADLY pay for all these (as wel…

Why is copy-paste broken? I never had issues. I don't have issues anymore with printing and networking. I understand that this stuff is per vendor so I usually do my research before buying (I have thinkpads, and my printers are all pretty friendly). I do see many windows computer fall over when printers connect to new wireless networks, though. As for mp3, flash, isn't is as simple as enabling a non-free repository a…

> Why is copy-paste broken? I never had issues.

Different programs use different conventions. For example, shift+insert does not do the same thing in say, xterm and firefox.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#53

Post by zorbo »

sandGorgon wrote: post #27

Copy paste, printing and networking. Biggest usability misses of Linux. I don't consider these technical issues...but usability issues. Things like insisting on keeping the install ISO at 750 mb, leaves seamless driver support out of the todo list because...hey, there are no drivers anyway. I'm really surprised there is not a paid version of Linux with these features baked in. I would GLADLY pay for all these (as wel…

> Copy paste

Out of curiosity, what do you feel is bad about copy-pasting under linux? It's inconsistent, but it's still the best copy-paste functionality I've experienced so far on any operating system. It'd be nice if all applications understood the dual clipboard, and if terminal applications behaved a bit better, but still.. by far the best of any OS as far as I'm concerned.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#55

Post by zorbo »

clarry wrote: post #52
pwnna wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is copy-paste broken? I never had issues. I don't have issues anymore with printing and networking. I understand that this stuff is per vendor so I usually do my research before buying (I have thinkpads, and my printers are all pretty friendly). I do see many windows computer fall over when printers connect to new wireless networks, though. As for mp3, flash, isn't is as simple as enabling a non-free repository a…

> Why is copy-paste broken? I never had issues. Different programs use different conventions. For example, shift+insert does not do the same thing in say, xterm and firefox.

Interesting. I only noticed now that shift-insert in Firefox doesn't use PRIMARY but CLIPBOARD. I'm so used to middle mouse button paste that I never noticed. This is probably due to Firefox not using a native graphical toolkit.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#56

Post by bri3d »

pwnna wrote: post #48
sandGorgon wrote: post #27

Copy paste, printing and networking. Biggest usability misses of Linux. I don't consider these technical issues...but usability issues. Things like insisting on keeping the install ISO at 750 mb, leaves seamless driver support out of the todo list because...hey, there are no drivers anyway. I'm really surprised there is not a paid version of Linux with these features baked in. I would GLADLY pay for all these (as wel…

Why is copy-paste broken? I never had issues. I don't have issues anymore with printing and networking. I understand that this stuff is per vendor so I usually do my research before buying (I have thinkpads, and my printers are all pretty friendly). I do see many windows computer fall over when printers connect to new wireless networks, though. As for mp3, flash, isn't is as simple as enabling a non-free repository a…

In X, you have N selections referenced by atom. Two atoms (PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD) are sometimes used interchangeably by various software, leading to all sorts of shenanigans where for example selecting then middle clicking pastes something that was "Ctrl+Ced" elsewhere or vice versa.

Additionally, X selections aren't buffers - they're handles used asynchronously. So, when you paste, if the source application is dead or has mis-handled its state internally, you don't get what you expect.

These behaviors are patched over by clipboard managers which manage PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD interactions and which immediately copy the selection into a buffer to make it long-lived. However, each desktop environment's clipboard manager has gradually expanded to include all kinds of strange environment-specific metadata possibilities (to enable, i.e. "Paste Special" options from a spreadsheet).

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#57

Post by [deleted] »

pwnna wrote: post #48
sandGorgon wrote: post #27

Copy paste, printing and networking. Biggest usability misses of Linux. I don't consider these technical issues...but usability issues. Things like insisting on keeping the install ISO at 750 mb, leaves seamless driver support out of the todo list because...hey, there are no drivers anyway. I'm really surprised there is not a paid version of Linux with these features baked in. I would GLADLY pay for all these (as wel…

Why is copy-paste broken? I never had issues. I don't have issues anymore with printing and networking. I understand that this stuff is per vendor so I usually do my research before buying (I have thinkpads, and my printers are all pretty friendly). I do see many windows computer fall over when printers connect to new wireless networks, though. As for mp3, flash, isn't is as simple as enabling a non-free repository a…

[deleted]

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#58

Post by sandGorgon »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #41
sandGorgon wrote: post #27

Copy paste, printing and networking. Biggest usability misses of Linux. I don't consider these technical issues...but usability issues. Things like insisting on keeping the install ISO at 750 mb, leaves seamless driver support out of the todo list because...hey, there are no drivers anyway. I'm really surprised there is not a paid version of Linux with these features baked in. I would GLADLY pay for all these (as wel…

There are no royalties for Flash. Well, apart from the yearly cap that Adobe pays. Similarly, Fluendo have been paying the cap for MP3 decoding since 2005 on their open source decoder for Linux. (MP3 decode should now be out of patent, as should most encode tasks but "intellectual property" likes to keep its boundary lines as vague as possible so you never know if you're trespassing and just pay out of fear/habit.) P…

I have only used Linux for the last 12 years. I use a thinkpad in an office full of macs and HP printers and 5ghz networks.

None of it works as seamlessly as on a Mac. I'm pretty comfortable compiling my custom kernels, so I'm more than the average Joe trying to setup networking.

There is still a reason why every Linux install asks you to explicitly select that you want mp3 codecs insralled. Flash is not installed by default. I don't know what the legal reasons are, but I'm willing to pay my share to not having to deal with it.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#59

Post by stsp »

alrs wrote: post #16
cad71 wrote: post #4

Yep and that is the beauty, but also the pitfall of open source. People can patch to make things work for them, but also as long no one take up the task (or form a group) to fundamentally redo a driver or rewrite the architecture nothing happens. So you should take up the task to change things (find people to help you), that's the strength of open source (community driven)

rtfm. Linux provides the architecture, the vendors ignore it and do it themselves. The Intel drivers require blobs. Broadcom used to require blobs that you had to cut out of Windows drivers yourself, though I have no idea what that's like now. The vendors use the excuse that this stuff requires FCC certification, and if they expose the low-level stuff some hax0rs will turn the wi-fi portion of the spectrum into CB ra…

The Atheros HAL was reverse engineered for OpenBSD. adrian@freebsd used to work at Atheros and managed to get them to open source their HAL. The code is now in FreeBSD where the HAL was a blob for years. AFAIK no hardware docs are available for people outside the company.

Ralink used to provide documentation on request. They've been acquired by Mediatek since. Mediatek allows OpenBSD to distribute binary firmware images under free terms (for the run(4) driver). Perhaps they'd still provide docs. I haven't asked yet.

Realtek's engineers tend to be kind and helpful, but they don't provide docs on request, citing NDAs, and management has ignored my requests. There are several open source drivers for Linux written by Realtek engineers which can be used as a reference but they are pretty large so studying them takes time.

Broadcom's open source drivers are unreadable to the point of being more or less equivalent to binary blobs. If you want to see why try to make sense of this file in Linux: drivers/netwireless/brcm80211/brcmsmac/phy/phy_n.c

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#60

Post by john61 »

tdicola wrote: post #33

I would extend it out to laptops and Linux in general. I've tried a few times over the last 10 years or so to use Linux on normal consumer laptops (Dells, Thinkpads, etc.) and it's always a really bad experience. Wifi issues, battery life, etc. have major problems. In the end I just gave up trying and use a MacBook with virtualization for running Linux.

I use Linux on ThinkPads since 1999 or so. I can not remember issues I could not solve. Just last week I installed Debian Wheezy on a X61 and everything worked out of the box. Works like a charm. This is a helpful resource: http://www.thinkwiki.org
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