Just wondered if anyone here had a quick answer to this.
Under windows my wifi network runs at 56Mb/s. However, the same (laptop) hardware running ubuntu (9.04) can only manage 11Mb/s.
Is there a way to get the full speed out of it?
Nev
On 14 Oct 12:53, nev young wrote:
Just wondered if anyone here had a quick answer to this.
Under windows my wifi network runs at 56Mb/s. However, the same (laptop) hardware running ubuntu (9.04) can only manage 11Mb/s.
Is there a way to get the full speed out of it?
ENOTENOUGHINFO...
Hard to say without knowing: * wifi card in question * driver you're using for it in umbongo
Also, is this just reported speed? Have you tried transferring things in both doze and linux and compared the time taken to download the same file over the network (note: you'll want to use a local file to actually be able to tell!)
Cheers,
Brett Parker wrote:
On 14 Oct 12:53, nev young wrote:
Just wondered if anyone here had a quick answer to this.
Under windows my wifi network runs at 56Mb/s. However, the same (laptop) hardware running ubuntu (9.04) can only manage 11Mb/s.
Is there a way to get the full speed out of it?
ENOTENOUGHINFO...
Well now I have your attention :-)
Hard to say without knowing: * wifi card in question
it has writ on it: micronet sp908gk v6 micronet 2.4GHz 54 Mbps 802.11G wireless lan card
* driver you're using for it in umbongo
networkmanager (0.7.0.100) info gives: Interface 802.11 WiFi (wlan0) driver rtl8180 speed 54Mbps Security WPA/WPA2
Also, is this just reported speed? Have you tried transferring things in both doze and linux and compared the time taken to download the same file over the network (note: you'll want to use a local file to actually be able to tell!)
these are actual speeds taken tonight.
transferring a 350Mb file in linux by lan; file operations reported: transfer speed of 9.9MB/s time taken was 37sec
transferring a 350Mb file in linux by wifi; file operations reported: transfer speed of 1.8MB/s (which is faster than I usually get!) time taken was 4min 14sec
transferring a 350Mb file in windows by wifi; transfer speed: well it doesn't say. time taken was 3min 15sec (rather slower than expected)
So tonight it looks like the hardware is trying to make me look like a pratt. The linux wifi was almost twice as fast as I normally get and windows was quite a bit slower than it used to be. I don't use windows any more but I do still have a bootable partition left on one of the laptops.
The same file was used in each case from the file server to the laptop, the only difference was that in doze it went via samba rather than by NFS. Oh doG! Don't tell me it's cos samba is faster than NFS.
Nev
nev young wrote:
Brett Parker wrote:
Hard to say without knowing: * wifi card in question
it has writ on it: micronet sp908gk v6 micronet 2.4GHz 54 Mbps 802.11G wireless lan card
* driver you're using for it in umbongonetworkmanager (0.7.0.100) info gives: Interface 802.11 WiFi (wlan0) driver rtl8180 speed 54Mbps Security WPA/WPA2
It's not listed on http://linux-wless.passys.nl/query_part.php?brandname=Micronet so you might like to report it. Looking at drivers/net/wireless/rtl8180_dev.c in the kernel looks like it at least attempts 54Mbps.
[...]
transferring a 350Mb file in linux by wifi; file operations reported: transfer speed of 1.8MB/s (which is faster than I usually get!) time taken was 4min 14sec
transferring a 350Mb file in windows by wifi; transfer speed: well it doesn't say. time taken was 3min 15sec (rather slower than expected)
If you're seeing differences between times, is there much WiFi interference nearby? Many other networks on nearby channels in the scan results?
[...]
The same file was used in each case from the file server to the laptop, the only difference was that in doze it went via samba rather than by NFS. Oh doG! Don't tell me it's cos samba is faster than NFS.
It depends how it's configured, but I'd expect it to be the other way around. NFS is older (they've had longer to optimise it) and I've seen it used on bigger sites. You could try transferring with smbclient to remove that difference.
Hope that helps,
MJ Ray wrote:
nev young wrote:
Brett Parker wrote:
If you're seeing differences between times, is there much WiFi interference nearby? Many other networks on nearby channels in the scan results?
Ah now that's a good point. There are between 6 and 20 wifi networks that I can see when I scan. When I did the test last night I brought the laptop into the same room as the server and access point. So it would have been a stronger than usual signal.
[...]
The same file was used in each case from the file server to the laptop, the only difference was that in doze it went via samba rather than by NFS. Oh doG! Don't tell me it's cos samba is faster than NFS.
It depends how it's configured, but I'd expect it to be the other way around. NFS is older (they've had longer to optimise it) and I've seen it used on bigger sites. You could try transferring with smbclient to remove that difference.
I'll give that a go later today. I prefer to use NFS, as for other family members just having their directories on the server appear as part of the local filesystem just makes it easier for them to cope.
As it's been confirmed (well sorta) that I'm using the correct driver and it's at least trying to run faster I may just have to put up with it. It is a PITA though. The server has a TV card and I use it as a PVR. I used to be able to stream the recorded programs to the laptop so I could watch the recordings. Now I have to either copy the file to the laptop as trying to stream it over wifi from the server is just not fast enough for smooth viewing. Or use the wired connection which works fine but looks untidy and ties me to the one room.
Nev
On Thu, 2009-10-15 at 07:31 +0100, nev young wrote:
As it's been confirmed (well sorta) that I'm using the correct driver and it's at least trying to run faster I may just have to put up with it. It is a PITA though. The server has a TV card and I use it as a PVR. I used to be able to stream the recorded programs to the laptop so I could watch the recordings. Now I have to either copy the file to the laptop as trying to stream it over wifi from the server is just not fast enough for smooth viewing. Or use the wired connection which works fine but looks untidy and ties me to the one room.
What's the CPU usage like on the laptop? Are you using WPA via wpa_supplicant? I'm just wondering if video decoding and WiFi encryption are competing for CPU and this is what stops video streaming from working.
Regards, Steve.
On Thu, 2009-10-15 at 07:31 +0100, nev young wrote:
MJ Ray wrote:
If you're seeing differences between times, is there much WiFi interference nearby? Many other networks on nearby channels in the scan results?
Ah now that's a good point. There are between 6 and 20 wifi networks that I can see when I scan. When I did the test last night I brought the laptop into the same room as the server and access point. So it would have been a stronger than usual signal.
On this subject I found an application for Android that shows the local WiFi networks, their channel numbers and signal strength graphically. I used this to set my AP's channel number in a dip. I haven't noticed a big increase in speed but I have noticed a big reduction in the number of times the work laptop (Windows) loses the WiFi connection.
Interestingly I've never had the same issue with any of the Linux PC's losing the connection though of course it may simply be that retraining at wireless level is reported as a lost connection in Windows and done silently in the background in Linux.
Regards, Steve.
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 11:23:05AM +0100, Steve Fosdick wrote:
On this subject I found an application for Android that shows the local WiFi networks, their channel numbers and signal strength graphically. I used this to set my AP's channel number in a dip. I haven't noticed a big increase in speed but I have noticed a big reduction in the number of times the work laptop (Windows) loses the WiFi connection.
I got bored of my network dropping all the time so replaced the mini-pci card in my router (wl500gp running openwrt) with an 802.11a card and now I don't have any problems at all. :)
Adam
On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 23:29 +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
nev young wrote: [...]
The same file was used in each case from the file server to the laptop, the only difference was that in doze it went via samba rather than by NFS. Oh doG! Don't tell me it's cos samba is faster than NFS.
It depends how it's configured, but I'd expect it to be the other way around. NFS is older (they've had longer to optimise it) and I've seen it used on bigger sites. You could try transferring with smbclient to remove that difference.
For large files I'd expect both FTP and HTTP to be faster than either of NFS or Samba because, unlike network file systems, the sending end knows the whole file is being transferred and so can make maximum use of the TCP window size.
Regards, Steve.
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Adam Bower -
Brett Parker -
MJ Ray -
nev young -
nev young -
Steve Fosdick