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The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

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Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#71

Post by dubfan »

icambron wrote: post #15

One of a handful reasons I don't have Linux on my laptop anymore, even though I like so many things about Linux so much more. I'm not sure about this point, though: > Connection time. I dislike OS X pretty deeply and think that many of its technical merits are way overblown, but it's got one thing going for it; it connects to an AP fast. I remember Linux being slow (and unreliable) at this, but OSX is pretty slow too…

I have found that the MacBook Pro's speed at connecting is dependent on the AP. My MBP connects to my work APs quickly, but it has issues with my home AP. Sometimes the connection to my home AP gets dropped for no reason, and when I try to reconnect it refuses to let me back on, claiming my password is incorrect. My MBP is the only device I own that has this problem (even my iPhone doesn't have this issue)

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#72

Post by pjlegato »

legulere wrote: post #69

I kind of feel like some user facing stuff on linux gets developed not until it's in a good or perfect state but until it's bearable. You can work with the GUIs for instance, but somehow they still feel very sluggish

This is precisely the problem with Linux. Everyone wants to work on cool kernel-level stuff or daemon-level stuff; nobody wants to bother with the tedious, unglamorous last-mile work of actually delivering a polished user experience around all of that cool stuff.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#73

Post by pjmlp »

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 went Windows instead, but share the same feelings.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#74

Post by jdong »

captainmuon wrote: post #2

One problem is that WiFi is completely opaque, especially but not only on Linux. You get no low-level and no debugging information. It just connects and you get some bars, or it doesn't. I never know where to start when debugging a bad connection, and I wouldn't know where to start if I wanted to improve Linux WiFi. For example, sometimes I can see a network, but can't connect. Why? I'd like to see something like "se…

>Sometimes I can't enter a text password, it only accepts a fixed-length hexadecimal string (happens on Windows a lot). Again why?

Um, maybe because WEP passphrases are fixed length hexadecimal strings?

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#75

Post by antocv »

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…

Same here, I kind of never got NetworkManager to do any good, I just gave up, so mii-tool, dhcpcd, iwconfig, wpa_supplicant are well used tools, basically it works fine, when I actually have the drivers. These tools dont bail out on me or try to hide complexities behind more complex abstractions like NetworkManager does. If im going to be troubleshooting anything, its going to be the networking issue and not dbus to networkmanager interface or policy files.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#76

Post by vezzy-fnord »

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…

Concerning networkd, I don't think so. It's mostly geared towards (and I believe even originating from) CoreOS, and environments similar to it. Mostly for managing network devices in containers and virtualized deployments. Red Hat's been sponsoring Project Atomic recently.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#77

Post by antocv »

fragmede wrote: post #50
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…

If you haven't used Network Manager in years, I'd suggest taking another look. It (like PulseAudio) was shipped far too early, souring early-adopters on its use. Later kernels have (somewhat) cleaned up the wireless driver interface so these days I don't have problems with day-to-day usage of Network Manager.

PulseAudio still requires you to be a hacker to get sound over network - something it promised to do well, but oh doesnt.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#78

Post by _lce0 »

pjlegato wrote: post #72
legulere wrote: post #69

I kind of feel like some user facing stuff on linux gets developed not until it's in a good or perfect state but until it's bearable. You can work with the GUIs for instance, but somehow they still feel very sluggish

This is precisely the problem with Linux. Everyone wants to work on cool kernel-level stuff or daemon-level stuff; nobody wants to bother with the tedious, unglamorous last-mile work of actually delivering a polished user experience around all of that cool stuff.

linux is a pretty vague term which can refer to many _moving_ things

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#79

Post by nilved »

ghostwords wrote: post #70

I ended up blacklisting the built-in card on my ThinkPad X220 because it was too flaky to rely on: $ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-local.conf blacklist rtl8192ce I use a USB adapter instead (SMCWUSB-N2), which, besides providing wireless internet, is a fine reminder to just get a MacBook next time.

Only get a MacBook if you're hanging on to the USB adapter. The Broadcom chips they come with are terrible (and so is its EFI boot.)

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#80

Post by pjlegato »

A main reason to use Apple products is that the hardware and software are always bundled and guaranteed to work together without any additional tweaking or messing around. You turn it on and it just works.

Both Windows and Linux suffer from the problem of attempting to support n different hardware configurations in a decentralized fashion, and neither has solved it very well.

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