why is it hard to get an ip address on a wireless network?

amuroray · 2011-11-08 10:00:49

edit:
Sorry for the late response. I really had a hard time connecting to a wireless network.
I realized that my main problem is not on my laptop wireless reception, cause my roommates experienced the same problem. It's because the router signal is already weak to begin with.
My real problem is that dhcpcd or dhclient often timed out when attempting to get an ip address. I don't know why. I'm sure that's nothing wrong with my wireless adapter, scanning with iwlist always shows some results. I even tried some injecting test with airodump-ng and it worked. while not any of my roommates experienced something like this. To be honest, I edited this topic using one of their laptops, which has win***s installed obviously.

any solution?

Last edited by amuroray (2011-11-16 23:00:47)

SidK · 2011-11-08 10:09:06

Do you have the same hardware on the two laptops? It's very possible one has a bigger antenna than the other, meaning it gets a better signal. Personally I've not seen a difference in wifi connectivity across different OSs.

An easy and cheap way I can think of is to create a cantenna. There's plenty of documentation on the web for how to make one and they help massively. Heck, I've even seem some tinfoil folded into a parabolic antenna and but "behind" the router's antenna boost signal (in this case it was a router to router wifi bridge), but that was possibly just dumb luck.

If you want to be sure it's a software issue you could run a live arch instance on your room mate's laptop and see if you get worse performance than when it's using windows. Or you do the opposite on your laptop, though that might be more effort.

Otherwise, I can't help you with iwconfig, sorry.

tomk · 2011-11-08 10:18:01

amuroray wrote:

And that made clear that the main problem's in my Arch configuration (I hope so) not the laptop or the signal.

Wrong, that is not clear at all. If you were to dual-boot Windows and Arch on your laptop, that would be a valid comparison. This is not the case - yes, you are comparing different OSes, but they are also running on different hardware, details of which you have not provided. It could be the wifi chipset, the driver, presence or absence of insternal antennae, etc, etc.

As for your questions - txpower won't help you here, it concerns the transmitting power from your laptop only. sens may be of use, but the only way to find out is to try various values and check the results. As the man page says, the hardware implementation determines the functions controlled by this parameter.

keenerd · 2011-11-08 12:29:53

Speed and range are inversely related. Use "rate" to force the speed down. Halving the speed will usually double the range.

Now keep in mind that everyone connected to the AP must do so at the slowest speed that anyone is using. So be courteous and try to always use the fastest speed that just barely works.

While "rate" has the biggest effect other options like "sens", "rts" and "frag" matter too. Especially "frag", in my experience.

Also, I would avoid cantennas for anything but a last resort. The ones I've built for fun have been very fiddly, despite years of trying. If you want to try building them (it is really fun and cheap) check out Seattle Wireless and Gumph. Commercial directionals are reliable, but overly expensive. Check out Wlan Parts if you don't want to fiddle with antenna turning for a week. (I use these guys for most everything now, great prices on USB adapters and outdoor antennas.)

But for the average person a simple high dB omni antenna is much easier to use. There are legal limits on how big of an antenna you can use. Omnis must be smaller than directionals. Most consumer gear is 500mW so an omni like this would be good. I've also had good success with adding reflectors to omnis.

Late late edit: Line of sight does not really matter here because the other laptop is not having trouble.

Last edited by keenerd (2011-11-08 13:19:49)

R00KIE · 2011-11-08 12:54:38

Location location location, even with the same hardware and software setup, location matters a lot. Line of sight matters, having less obstacles in the way, or the angle at which the signal crosses walls matters.

twilight0 · 2011-11-08 23:17:27

From my experience:

I have a little tablet PC that dual-boots between Windows 7 & Linux (Bodhi... for now). Standing in the same spot at home, lending my neighbor use my modem/router because he bricked his own by trying and then trying to connect. From Windows the signal was poor (meaning it was at just the limit of not disconnecting) but sufficient for web browsing. On windows I have some driver options on optimizing bandwidth or favor distance, some thresholds and "protection" modes, bluetooth collaboration among other stuff. I 've adjusted these settings for not losing reception and that was it. In the event of disconnecting I 've had set a static ip for quick reconnect.

On Linux I didnt have so good reception out of the box, so I kept using Windows. And then I learned about the iwconfig tweaks I could do. But then again I was too lazy to type on the touchscreen. Yet iwconfig would probably help and maybe work better than windows.

A repeater could also extend your neighbor's network.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-11-08 10:00:49

why is it hard to get an ip address on a wireless network?

#2 2011-11-08 10:09:06

Re: why is it hard to get an ip address on a wireless network?

#3 2011-11-08 10:18:01

Re: why is it hard to get an ip address on a wireless network?

#4 2011-11-08 12:29:53

Re: why is it hard to get an ip address on a wireless network?

#5 2011-11-08 12:54:38

Re: why is it hard to get an ip address on a wireless network?

#6 2011-11-08 23:17:27

Re: why is it hard to get an ip address on a wireless network?

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