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The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

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Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#111

Post by peterwwillis » 

  Why does my Intel card consistently pick 2.4 GHz over 5 GHz?
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/24246/~/what-i...

"Overall the 5GHz has shorter range compared to the 2.4GHz. It is recommended to select the 2.4 GHz if you using computers and wireless devices to access the Internet for simple browsing and email. These applications do not take too much bandwidth and work fine at a greater distance.

However, if you are in a place which is crowded with more wireless signals, it is advisable to use the 5GHz network to avoid interferences. Furthermore, the 5GHz is most suited for devices which require uninterrupted wider bandwidth for video/audio streaming or multimedia content."

  I can sit literally right next to an AP and get a connection on the lowest basic rate
It's possible that Linux is more likely to reduce your rate in the face of increasing errors and noise, whereas other OSes/drivers might ignore the noise/errors and keep the rate the same, regardless of literally not having the advertised throughput.

  In any case, even the WPA2 setup is slow for some reason, it's not just DHCP.
Both your DHCP client and your WPA client are not optimized for speed on Linux, they are optimized for reliability.

  it's not unusual at all to be stuck at some low-speed AP when a higher-speed one is available
Yeah; your wireless client isn't going to change APs until it loses signal.

Most of these complaints are industry issues that have different proprietary fixes intended to appease consumers, but none of them are recommended or required by the industry.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#112

Post by Crito »

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…

Yeah, I haven't even so much as bothered to look at the wifi chipsets in computers that I purchase since like... 2007? Since then I just assume that it works, and so far it always has.

The only trouble I have is with this corporate T420 with Windows 7, on my home wifi network. Sometimes it takes 5+ minutes to connect (2.4ghz or 5ghz wireless-n, I have both available and it has trouble with both.)

I've also never had a single problem with NetworkManager, despite what others are saying. Then again, I've also never had problems with the infamous PulseAudio... I bought a cheap-as-hell USB audio card off the internet the other day and it Just Worked™. That didn't even surprise me.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#113

Post by Pistos2 »

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 think this just depends on the make and model. I did a bit of homework before purchase a few years ago (to ensure good compatibility with GNU/Linux), and my Dell Inspiron N7010 has been serving me faithfully for years. No major wifi issues, no battery life issues.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#114

Post by pjlegato »

_lce0 wrote: post #78
pjlegato wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's another problem with Linux. "Linux" is a kit of 50,000 mostly-compatible little parts. If your hobby is assembling systems out of these parts, that's great; but it's less useful to you if you want to do higher-order work on top of an assembled computer system.

For example, tailing /proc files and compiling new kernel drivers shouldn't be a part of getting wifi to work anymore in 2014. It should just work. Of course, if you want to tinker it's great that you _can_ tail the /proc files, but you shouldn't have to. You should be able to turn your computer on and just have wifi, out of the box.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#115

Post by diminoten »

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…

What do you mean "flawlessly"? What are your criteria for success? I suspect they're different from the person who wrote the submission.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#116

Post by dnautics »

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…

I've used exclusively linux at home, for the last 6 years (except at work), and I did find that some of the nano wi-fi USB things (necessary for rPi) don't work.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#117

Post by schmichael »

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…

a) Your personal anecdotes may not broadly apply.

b) Just because Windows is worse doesn't mean Linux isn't frustrating.

c) The post complains more about performance (rate, connect time, etc) and complexity (numerous overlapping components) than "Does it work at all".

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#118

Post by nodata »

frik wrote: post #51
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).

Your voltage on the USB port might be too low.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#119

Post by schmichael »

bitwize wrote: post #83

If you're using NetworkMangler, God help you. Shit's never worked right for me... even connecting to my home wifi it gets way fewer bars than it should, and keeps making and breaking the association. Using just wpa_supplicant and dhclient, I've had far fewer problems, particularly with Intel wireless chipsets. Linux would benefit from a bit of expectations management. Some of us neither want nor need a less expensive…

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.

Re: The sad state of Linux Wi-Fi

#120

Post by maxerickson »

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…

The best method I found for getting a Windows 7 Dell to stop being stubborn is to restart the wireless driver.

Toggling the wireless power is less reliable than soft restarting.

Making the soft restart easy involves downloading the Windows SDK, to get a copy of DevCon, and then stuffing it into a scheduled task so that you can run it without a UAC prompt.

(I mean this more as 'surprise surprise it's the drivers' than as a defense of windows)

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