I run a dual-boot vista / ubuntu 8.10 setup with a Netgear WG111v2.
Unfortunately, I have very thick walls, and my router is the other end of my house.
I've always been susceptible to a weak signal, but the latest netgear driver for vista gets me 65% strength rock-solid - I was amazed.
Ubuntu 8.10 gives me 19% - a couple of pings return, or maybe a fragment of a webpage, but it's basically unusable. (Network manager claims 80%, but I know not to trust that...)
Anyone else have experience of this kind of setup? Is it worth compiling the latest driver from source?
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I have an Alfa rtl8187 chipped usb dongle. Ubuntu 8.10 uses the mac80211 driver for this chipset which, for me, connects ok but has terrible reception. If your dongle has a high power setting then also check the status of the dongle with iwconfig because Ubuntus mac drivers always made my Alfa fire up in full power mode (27db on mine) even without an aerial connected. This is obviously a bit of a crap idea as will burn the Alfa out in no time at all. Anyway, the solution for me was to forgo the mac80211 drivers and use the older ieee80211 drivers instead. Blacklist rtl8187 and use the drivers from rtl8187_linux_26.1010.zip (and the 2.6.27 patch if you want it as well) that are on the aircrack-ng website. With the ieee80211 drivers the reception/connection is a million times better. Unfortunatley though the ease of using Network Manager for WPA connection goes out of the window.
In my laptop with 8.10 on it Network Manager works spot on with the internal Intel PROSet 4965 AGN in every way including WPA. The rtl8187 Alfa is still receptionally challenged though. I'm pretty sure the majority of problems with Network Manager are down to the individual drivers for the different cards. The mac80211 drivers from Ubuntu 8.04 were better than the new ones from 8.10 by far (apart from the WPA problem). I wonder if these will compile for the newer kernel in 8.10? I might try it if I get time.
As a side note I would love to use the mac80211 drivers but for the life of me I cannot get injection working with the aircrack-ng patches and the stock 2.6.27-9 Ubuntu kernel and there is also the power setting problem as well.
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I run a dual-boot vista / ubuntu 8.10 setup with a Netgear WG111v2.
Unfortunately, I have very thick walls, and my router is the other end of my house.
I've always been susceptible to a weak signal, but the latest netgear driver for vista gets me 65% strength rock-solid - I was amazed.
Ubuntu 8.10 gives me 19% - a couple of pings return, or maybe a fragment of a webpage, but it's basically unusable. (Network manager claims 80%, but I know not to trust that...)
Anyone else have experience of this kind of setup? Is it worth compiling the latest driver from source?
I have an Alfa rtl8187 chipped usb dongle. Ubuntu 8.10 uses the mac80211 driver for this chipset which, for me, connects ok but has terrible reception. If your dongle has a high power setting then also check the status of the dongle with iwconfig because Ubuntus mac drivers always made my Alfa fire up in full power mode (27db on mine) even without an aerial connected. This is obviously a bit of a crap idea as will burn the Alfa out in no time at all. Anyway, the solution for me was to forgo the mac80211 drivers and use the older ieee80211 drivers instead. Blacklist rtl8187 and use the drivers from rtl8187_linux_26.1010.zip (and the 2.6.27 patch if you want it as well) that are on the aircrack-ng website. With the ieee80211 drivers the reception/connection is a million times better. Unfortunatley though the ease of using Network Manager for WPA connection goes out of the window.
In my laptop with 8.10 on it Network Manager works spot on with the internal Intel PROSet 4965 AGN in every way including WPA. The rtl8187 Alfa is still receptionally challenged though. I'm pretty sure the majority of problems with Network Manager are down to the individual drivers for the different cards. The mac80211 drivers from Ubuntu 8.04 were better than the new ones from 8.10 by far (apart from the WPA problem). I wonder if these will compile for the newer kernel in 8.10? I might try it if I get time.
As a side note I would love to use the mac80211 drivers but for the life of me I cannot get injection working with the aircrack-ng patches and the stock 2.6.27-9 Ubuntu kernel and there is also the power setting problem as well.