[mythtv-users] OT: wireless 802.11g pci suggestions
Dan Morphis
dan at milkcarton.com
Sat Jun 26 23:07:56 EDT 2004
David Wood wrote:
> On Sat, 2004-06-26 at 16:30, Myth wrote:
>
> > Anybody have suggestions on a good cheap PCI wireless card for my
> > remote frontend? I am running FC1, and have a Netgear WGT624 AP.
> > Can anything use the 'turbo' mode in linux?
Doesn't work on my d-link, but I have to use the linuxant ndis wrapper.
>
>
> I've been down this road, and before I start, I want to warn you. I'm
> unhappy with 802.11g in general, and frankly I don't recommend using
> it unless running cable is really, really onerous or outright
> impossible. Wireless is expensive, finicky, annoying, slow, and prone
> to constant, aggravating trouble.
I would concur. My wireless works crappy at best, then when the
neighbor fires up his ham radio, its useless.
>
<snip>
>
> I have a home where running cabling _is_ a major problem. It could be
> done, but it would be ugly and very difficult. Wireless was an
> obvious alternative, but I needed something that could move
> multimedia - especially big video files - without taking hours. That
> meant bleeding edge 802.11g wireless hardware, namely "turbo mode" in
> its various forms. I also wanted real, functioning encryption, which
> means WPA instead of WEP. Not crazy enough yet? I also need it to
> run in Linux.
I got wireless for those same reasons. Got the same setup even (turbo g).
>
> The bad news is, there is currently no Linux support for any "turbo"
> 802.11g solution. In fact, there is very little Linux support for
> _any_ 802.11g solution. This stems in part from the stunning, ongoing
> apathy of the network vendors, the complexity of modern wireless
> drivers and hardware, and FCC regulations that may mean writing
> open-source drivers for these cards is actually illegal...
>
<snip>
> D-Link, however, seemed to win in reviews on both speed and (most
> important to me) signal strength. Their turbo mode involves channel
> bonding among other optimizations and is marketed as a "108Mb"
> solution. The rumor is that this system disrupts neighboring
> networks, but I don't know if that's been firmly established. In a
I read an indepth article on it, the guy even had pic's from a spectrum
analyzer showing that it does in-fact interfere. Just not to the degree
that Linksys says it does.
> way the whole concept is laughable. 2.4Ghz is the wild west.
> Everything interferes with everything else... Microwaves, telephones,
> flourescent lights, you name it.
>
> I took the plunge and got a D-Link. $80 router, $50 PCI cards. My
> life has not been easy since. But, I am using it (108Mb, WPA
> encryption) as I write, and although my problems with it are far from
> solved, it is usable - for the most part.
Agreed, works for the most part.
>
> First, aside from anything to do with Linux, 802.11G (let alone
> turbo) is not all its cracked up to be. I had terrible problems with
> signal strength just using Windows clients. I couldn't go 30 feet,
> through just two walls. Metal in the walls? Cosmic rays? Interference
> from neighboring LANs? Who knows. But buyer beware. After reading on
> the internet, it's clear I wasn't the only one to be shocked at how
> weak 802.11 signals really are. I tried expensive 3rd party antennas,
> and was terribly disappointed (this barely made a difference). In
> the end, I spent days carefully repositioning everything to finally
> establish mediocre signal strength to all clients.
I have decent signal strength to my pvr, but thats ONLY because my pvr
literally sits above my wap (well with the floor seperating them). To
my desktop, currently I have a good signal (for me anyways) at around
32%. Its usually around 11 - 20%. Like David, my pc is about 30 feet
and through two walls from my wap.
>
> I read many horror stories about constant router reboots with D-Link.
> With current firmware I didn't have that problem, though I have a
> different one; after running for between 8-12 hours, performance will
> degrade to the point where a DNS lookup will take 30 seconds. The
> workaround? Reboot the router every 8-12 hours (or more often, to
> taste). Ugly ugly ugly. Will D-Link ever fix their firmware? Hah.
> Hold your breath and wait.
>
> Driverloader has a mailing list and good (although not perfect) tech
> support compared to most small software vendors. So I don't feel
> cheated. But I went through the wringer with Kernel OOPSes and
> terrible performance. A combination of kernel upgrades and configs
> and new versions of the wrapper have me stable and I can usually get
> equivalent speed to what I see in Windows... in other words,
> mediocre. I see about 1MB (megabyte/sec) transfer rates, and often
> see this sag lower. All a function of the weak 802.11 signals. I
> should see 2-3 times that.
>
> I didn't mention the fun part. My linux client just loses the network
> every few hours. Only shutting down the network, removing the
> driverloader module, and reloading it will get me back up. I wrote a
> shell script to check the results of ping and do this restart if the
> ping fails. It runs every five minutes. Fun, right? Welcome to my
> world.
I thankfully haven't had that problem with my linux box. I'm using the
1.54 driverloader drivers, for my d-link turbo-g pci card. D-Link
driver version 10/22/2003,3.0.0.44, kernel version
2.4.22-1.2163.nptl_32.rhfc1.at
>
> I am tempted just to try the Linksys hardware as an alternative and
> return it if it isn't an improvement, but at this point I'm cynical
> and exhausted with the whole mess. It's tough to justify the trouble,
> given that from what I've read, compared to D-Link, Linksys is the
> "weak signal" brand. But who knows. I may still give it a try.
But, you can hack the linksys and boost the output from the wap.
>
> So what does it all add up to? You can get 108MB+WPA wireless on
> Linux. But you probably don't want to. At least not yet.
Agreed.
-dan
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