Jamie's Random Musings
Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Linux, Windows XP and Widows Vista, and assorted bits of hardware new and old.
Monday 4 August 2008, 1:13 PM
Wireless-N Networking and Linux
After installing a new Netgear Wireless-N Dual Band Router (review), I was anxious to test Linux with it. So far the results are... well... mixed.
First, the baseline. I am doing this testing on my primary laptop, a Fujitsu Lifebook S6510, with a built-in Intel 4965AGN wireless adapter. I have the router set up with both Wireless-G and Wireless-N networks, each with a different SSID. With Windows XP Professional, it detects both, connects to the Wireless-N network with no problem using WPA2 security, and gives speeds ranging from 300 Mb/sec to 108 Mb/sec. All very nice.
With Ubuntu (and Kubuntu) it shows both networks in the Network Manager list, and it connects to the Wireless-N using WPA2 with no problem. However, it only reports a speed of 54 Mb/sec. I don't know if this means it really will not connect at a higher speed, or if the Linux driver simply doesn't know how to report anything higher than that.
With Mandriva, the Wireless-N SSID did not show up in the network list, so I was not able to test it.
With openSuSE I had basically the same result as with Ubuntu.
I will do some more testing this evening, to see if Ubuntu is really getting connection faster than 54 Mb/sec, and with a couple of other Linux versions.
jw 4/8/2008
First, the baseline. I am doing this testing on my primary laptop, a Fujitsu Lifebook S6510, with a built-in Intel 4965AGN wireless adapter. I have the router set up with both Wireless-G and Wireless-N networks, each with a different SSID. With Windows XP Professional, it detects both, connects to the Wireless-N network with no problem using WPA2 security, and gives speeds ranging from 300 Mb/sec to 108 Mb/sec. All very nice.
With Ubuntu (and Kubuntu) it shows both networks in the Network Manager list, and it connects to the Wireless-N using WPA2 with no problem. However, it only reports a speed of 54 Mb/sec. I don't know if this means it really will not connect at a higher speed, or if the Linux driver simply doesn't know how to report anything higher than that.
With Mandriva, the Wireless-N SSID did not show up in the network list, so I was not able to test it.
With openSuSE I had basically the same result as with Ubuntu.
I will do some more testing this evening, to see if Ubuntu is really getting connection faster than 54 Mb/sec, and with a couple of other Linux versions.
jw 4/8/2008
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