[mythtv-users] OT: wireless 802.11g pci suggestions

[Dan Morphis]

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