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The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

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Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#181

Post by aeroevan »

oftenwrong wrote: post #144
taylorbuley wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good thing my brightness settings are stuck at 100% or I wouldn't be able to upvote this comment.

Does xbacklight work?

My macbook pro (running linux) has a strange issue where I have to run setpci -v -H1 -s 00:01.00 BRIDGE_CONTROL=0 before the backlight works (when using official NVIDIA drivers, nouveau works fine).

My T410 thinkpad required some XOrg.conf setting get the backlight working. It really is strange how bad the NVIDIA drivers are with this backlight stuff.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#182

Post by freehunter »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #131
freehunter wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried setting proxy configuration so that apt-get would work with my employer's proxy. I put my (plain-text) username and password into a dozen different configuration files before it finally worked. Then I changed my password, and couldn't remember where all I had put my credentials in. I ended up having to reinstall the whole OS because I couldn't figure out how to undo the proxy settings that took me forever to…

I had similar problems with Linux. This is why I have now a rather long textfile in a dropbox folder in which I write down all problems/solution/tweaks I had to deal with. If the same thing pops up again after half a year I can just look it up.

I do the same thing with regex one-liners.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#183

Post by pwg »

dendory wrote: post #34

I think a big portion of the problems Linux has these days is how unbelievably bloated and overconvulated distributions have become. Every single function has three, four or more ways to do the same thing, often with different results. When trying to get something working I never know if I should run the /etc/init.d script, restart the service manually, edit a config file, use the command line config until or use the…

Try Slackware, http://www.slackware.com/, none of that auto-magical stuff of the other distros, with it you control your system instead of your system controlling you.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#184

Post by vacri »

klodolph wrote: post #168
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…

It's opaque on Linux, but that's not the big problem. It's opaque on OS X and Windows as well, but nobody cares because it works . I wonder if we'll eventually get the kind of stability that we currently have with ethernet drivers... once the speeds are high enough that we stop upgrading, once the chips go into long-term production instead of changing every few years, once things settle down...

Given that wifi has been constantly evolving since it started, it's not going to settle on chips any time soon. 802.11ac has just been released, prompting a new round of chips.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#185

Post by aye »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #131
freehunter wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried setting proxy configuration so that apt-get would work with my employer's proxy. I put my (plain-text) username and password into a dozen different configuration files before it finally worked. Then I changed my password, and couldn't remember where all I had put my credentials in. I ended up having to reinstall the whole OS because I couldn't figure out how to undo the proxy settings that took me forever to…

I had similar problems with Linux. This is why I have now a rather long textfile in a dropbox folder in which I write down all problems/solution/tweaks I had to deal with. If the same thing pops up again after half a year I can just look it up.

Great idea. I keep a folder full of Markdown files that I push to a Bitbucket wiki.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#186

Post by deathanatos »

klodolph wrote: post #168
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…

It's opaque on Linux, but that's not the big problem. It's opaque on OS X and Windows as well, but nobody cares because it works . I wonder if we'll eventually get the kind of stability that we currently have with ethernet drivers... once the speeds are high enough that we stop upgrading, once the chips go into long-term production instead of changing every few years, once things settle down...

I disagree. It's possible to get advanced output from various command line tools in Linux, and it's possible to get networking information. It's much more difficult to do that on other OSs, especially Windows. I loathe debugging network troubles in Windows, because there is essentially no information. OS X has most of your standard tools, though some in some odd places, e.g., printing the routing table not being done with `route`.

Furthermore, I care. My 2013 Macbook Pro is terribly slow to associate to even nearby APs, and drops the connection often. I have no idea why, because it is opaque: how do you list nearby APs? their signal strength or encryption type? I didn't learn this until just now, and it's,

    /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport -s
Seriously. There's no way I'll remember it, and if you're reaching for it, you likely can't Google it. And it appears to be deprecated. It's a much shorter command in Linux, and in general I find it easier to determine if the problem is the network connection or DHCP failure. IIRC, Network Manager's icon changes — admittedly not much – depending on which one it's on, so even without command line tools, I have some idea what's going on.

OS X has the troubleshooter dialog, but that's never been able to fix the problem. (In general, I feel, those things never do. They also never tell you what they're doing. For all I know, they're just progress bars and timers.) WiFi off, WiFi on fixes a lot of problems.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#187

Post by clebio »

Istof wrote: post #135
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…

If you don't feel like doing the research to make sure that your hardware will work correctly under Linux, you can buy a computer with Linux pre-installed.

Which is to say, you know, the one Dell laptop and the System76 behemoths. So, yeah, two options out of ... thousands.

And, research or not, _no_ hardware really, fully supports linux (or, vice-versa). Which is sort of the point of this whole thread.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#188

Post by jingo »

I've never been impressed with WiFi in general.

Glad to see others in this thread reflecting a similar sentiment.

I still prefer a wired connection, where possible. Not because I like wires, but because it is more reliable and the protocol is easier to understand.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#189

Post by lotsofmangos »

clarry wrote: post #94
antocv wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you aren't blessed with luck, one might say that PulseAudio still requires you to be a hacker to get sound. Over and over again. Every time you think it's fixed for good, it'll prove you wrong.

My current regular experience is:

Pulse audio + reconnecting bluetooth speaker after it powers off = bad day

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#190

Post by Audrey_II »

rbanffy wrote: post #109

I have 3 Linux laptops in the house. One with Intel running Ubuntu, another with Broadcom running Fedora and the third with a Prism interface running CentOS 6. All three work flawlessly. We also have 3 Macbooks, a white one, a Pro 13 and a Retina 13. All three work flawlessly with our Wi-fi. My wife had a corporate-issued HP laptop running Windows 7. It connected to our wireless once or twice over a year. I had a net…

Wow! Now just try synching a recent IOS product to your Linux machines.

Or getting an AMD GPU to work.

Or changing screen refresh rate without using the console.

Or telling Linux to ignore a second wireless card (can't turn them off independently.) Is it really that hard to fix?

This is just my short list.

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