Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

blog.sesse.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 274 posts

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#201

Post by pessimizer »

clebio wrote: post #187
Istof wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Zareason is the bees knees: http://zareason.com/shop/UltraLap-440.html

They'll ship with the distro of your choice preinstalled, and I've had wonderful experience with their support (where they suggested a kernel upgrade for me a few versions higher than what was shipping with my preferred distro.) Every model except the UltraLap comes with a mini-screwdriver and encouragement to use it. The UltraLap is their competition with 'ultrabooks' though, so it's not put together as nicely as the others - no screwdriver there:(

They just test everything, and only send you stuff that works.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#202

Post by rockymeza »

clarry wrote: post #90
antocv wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So basically you need four different tools to set up networking? Well, it sure sounds like the complexities are there and in plain sight then. I can't help but wonder though if it isn't possible to get rid of some of these complexities and make life simpler?

I wrote a python app/CLI program for dealing with those couple of programs.

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/wifi/0.3.1

It works ok and just wraps ifup and iwlist. It also reads and writes /etc/network/interface style config, so you can see what's going on under the hood.

But I agree. Getting it all work the first time (or when I encounter a new type of network) is just ridiculous.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#203

Post by kalleboo »

chrisbolt wrote: post #196
deathanatos wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Open Wireless Diagnostics in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications, then click Window -> Utilities. Gives lots of detailed info, frame capture, logging, etc. https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ndc35q0gxynffl/Screenshot%202014-...

You can access it easier by holding down the "option" key and selecting the Wifi menu http://imgb.mp/jxy.jpg

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#205

Post by JetSpiegel »

aye wrote: post #169
tomn wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NetworkManager doesn't relay any error information to the interface at all, but it's log files are quite detailed. At least on systemd based distributions (tested on arch), running journalctl -fu NetworkManager will show you the live logs of NetworkManager interleaved with the logs of it's subprocesses; this has lots of juicy information that i've found quite usefull for debugging.

> journalctl -fu NetworkManager Perfectly sums up my feelings about NetworkManager.

What so bad about Network Manager? nmcli is really useful.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#206

Post by ori_b »

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 wish. On OSX, I often see a connection with full bars, which fails to connect. I have no idea why. It's incredibly frustrating.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#207

Post by JetSpiegel »

tlarimer wrote: post #166
schmichael wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using NetworkManager for years with few complaints. I love its VPN support and have used it consistently at a couple jobs. The moral: Anecdotes aren't very useful.

They can be when they are in abundance.

The plural of anecdote is not data, though.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#208

Post by emmelaich »

ori_b wrote: post #206
klodolph wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wish. On OSX, I often see a connection with full bars, which fails to connect. I have no idea why. It's incredibly frustrating.

Yeah, OSX is good but it still has problems.

    . chooses 2.4 over 5
    . not automatically connecting to my mobile wifi even though I use it all the time
    . simply tries and fails to connect over and over and over .. I have to stop wifi and start it, and then it just works.
My 2013 Air has had three updates including firmware that mention wifi fixes but it still has problems.

OTOH, my Fedora 20 install has been behaving beautifully (though to be said in far less challenging environments)

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#209

Post by dheera »

aeturnum wrote: post #160
dheera wrote: post #150

"The 5 GHz signal is just as strong" Interesting. My dormitory at MIT has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz signals. The 5GHz is extremely weak but my Android devices love to pick a weak 5GHz signal over the 2.4GHz and subsequently have terrible speeds. On another note, I wish that browsers and applications would keep firing spawning and firing requests at a rate beyond human perception, until one succeeds. The state of browsing…

> I wish that browsers and applications would keep firing spawning and firing requests at a rate beyond human perception, until one succeeds. I do not think you would enjoy the network conditions that come with that behavior. The point about killing old sockets early when switching wifi makes a lot of sense, however.

Well, the problem is really that the network isn't even connected properly in the first place. I agree that it shouldn't behave badly while actually on the network. It's just odd that madly hitting refresh while wifi is reconnecting actually gives me a sooner and faster page load than letting the machine load by itself. That means there is something can be automated but unfortunately isn't being automated.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#210

Post by mcovey »

I bought a Netgear wifi-to-ethernet adapter when I switched to Linux. For desktops, it's an ideal solution: zero-maintenance, the computer just knows eth0 has a connection from somewhere. It has a web interface to set up connections. The only downside - and this doesn't matter for most desktop users - no monitor mode, no reaver, nothing related to wireless at all, because as far as the OS is concerned, it's wired.

For laptops, there are always plenty micro-sized USB adapters with known compatibility if your built-in wifi has bad or no drivers.

Post reply on HN