Re: Problems on Ubuntu Dapper

["Darren Albers" <dalbers gmail com>]

On 12/18/06, Francis Bolduc <fbolduc gmail com> wrote:
> > >
> > >    Problem #1: When playing a FPS game, the connection drop dead once in
> > > while. I also see the Gnome widget doing the "refresh" animation at roughly
> > > the same interval. What's going on?
> >
> > You probably have a signal problem, what type of card is it?   If it
> > is a Atheros Chipset (Madwifi) there is an issue with the way the
> > driver reports signal strength and the way every other card does it to
> > cause Network-Manager to think the signal strength is lower than it
> > really is.  If this is the case you should file a bug.  If you post
> > the # here I can confirm it and add more details.
>
> The card is indeed an Atheros AR5002X with an AR5212 chipset. Here's
> the URL with the specs: http://www.atheros.com/pt/AR5002XBulletin.htm
>
> Could you give me an advice on what to write in the bug report?

Open the bug on Network-Manager (Check to make sure their isn't one
now) that the Madwifi drivers report signal strength differently than
other cards and therefore Network-Manager sees the connection as
having a weaker signal than it truly does.  Robert Love posted a
workaround here:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2006-January/msg00141.html

The second patch is what I use.

To be clear, this is not a NetworkManager problem and the Madwifi
people would claim that it isn't a problem with them either.  The
Madwifi team elected to use a method of measuring signal strength that
is different than most (all?) others.  The patch Robert posted works
around this.

> > >   Problem #2: After I removed the network-manager package, there were no
> > > longer any automatic DHCP request for my network connections. I must do it
> > > manually. How can I fix this?
> >
> > You would need to enable the device in the Network Tool under
> > system->administration after you remove network manager.
>
> Is there a way to do it from the terminal? Any configuration file to
> check? I'm really interested in the internals.

Yes, edit /etc/network/interfaces and change the lines for your
wireless card to be just auto.   If you search ubuntuforums.org there
is a lot of details on the settings for this file.  This is a
debian/Ubuntu specific configuration only and not a Network Manager
item so it is a bit out of scope for this list.

> > >   Problem #3: Finally, I reinstalled the network-manager package. Now it
> > > does not see my Wireless adapters, or so I guess because the Gnome widget
> > > does not list WAP anymore. What did I do wrong?
> >
> > Verify that you have the device set as not configured in the Ubuntu
> > Network Tools.  The Ubuntu package was modified to not manage any
> > interface configured there.
>
> Again, is there a way to do it from the terminal?

Yes, edit /etc/network/interfaces so the interface is set to dhcp
(auto).    If you search ubuntuforums.org there is a lot of details on
the settings for this file.  This is a debian/Ubuntu specific
configuration only and not a Network Manager item so it is a bit out
of scope for this list.

It would be something like this:
auto ath0
iface ath0 inet dhcp

But verify that with the ubuntu documentation or the people on the
Ubuntu Forums.