Wireless performance

Tech Support Forum Linux, BSD and Other OS's
1

For one reason or another, I have got Windows running again on my laptop. Very long story but I am soon to go back to my preferred Debian.

One thing I have noticed is that although the laptop is crawling again, the wireless performance is way, way better using windows.

When using Debian, I use the ath5k driver by default, as in I did not have to do anything to get wireless working out of the box. However, speeds are normally about 25% to 30% lower, if not more and not very reliable. Set up is exactly the same but man, performance is much better under windows… :x:

Is anyone experiencing the same? Is there anyway of boosting wireless connection with ath5k?

Ta, very moch for looking… :cool:

2

I’ve got a similar chipset on my ATOM-based mini-ITX media center, which is running Debian Lenny and the ATOM kernel from the HWF repos. The wireless reception on that chipset is sweet in 2.6.32.xx. Which kernel are you running on your Deb box?

EDIT: I take it back, it seems to be a more advanced chipset after all:

04:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
Subsystem: Device 1a3b:1067
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 19
Region 0: Memory at febf0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities:
Kernel driver in use: ath9k
Kernel modules: ath9k

3

Hey AT. Thanks for responding.
I was using Debian Testing running the latest HWF Kernel (as you already noted 2.6.32.xx).

Perhaps I should look into getting a better chipped wifi card?

4

For a chipset of that age, you might try madwifi and see how it works for you.

5

Given… unfortunately, when I try to use the module-assistant it cannot get the source (madwifi was dropped in Lenny and onwards… I think :x:). I know it sounds pathetically lame but this obviously means that I will need to build madwifi from source after getting the source outside the Dedian repositories… right?

6

Looks like it’s in non-free:

$ aptitude show madwifi-source
Package: madwifi-source
New: yes
State: not installed
Version: 1:0.9.4+r3772.20080716-1
Priority: optional
Section: non-free/net
Maintainer: Debian madwifi team [email protected]
Uncompressed Size: 4186k
Depends: module-assistant, debhelper (>= 7), bzip2
Suggests: kernel-package, madwifi-tools
Description: source for the Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi
This package provides the source code for the madwifi kernel modules. The madwifi-tools package is also required in order to make use of these modules. Kernel source or headers are required to compile these
modules.
Homepage: MadWifi.net

…Or you could just download the latest source from madwifi.org and build it yourself. :slight_smile: They do have rather good instructions on how to build and install it in Debian IIRC.

http://madwifi-project.org/

7

Cool… Thanks AT. I will give it a go when I am back with the real stuff… :cool: