HOW-TO: the Wicd solution to the RT2500 slow connection problem

[RavanH]

I noticed that the logical name had changed and I believe it is listed as WLAN0 in WICD properties so I will check that out first.
Network is broadcasting SSID and using wep,40 bit; I did not see anywhere in WICD to enter these
When you do an install of 1.6 over exsiting WICD does it over write 1.5.9, if so how do I get it back? How do I unistall1.6?
Thanks if all else fails I will contact the WICD forum; I will also post the results of my endeavor here for others.

thx!

I never done it before but in Synaptic there is an option to 'force' a version. Open Synaptic Package Management and find wicd. Highlight wicd and click the menu Package > Force version... You can now select the older 1.5.9 version.

I am not sure what happens if Canonical decides to put a newer version up in the official repo. Your Upgrade Manager might stick with this older version whatever happens...?

[acutshall1]

I never done it before but in Synaptic there is an option to 'force' a version. Open Synaptic Package Management and find wicd. Highlight wicd and click the menu Package > Force version... You can now select the older 1.5.9 version.

I am not sure what happens if Canonical decides to put a newer version up in the official repo. Your Upgrade Manager might stick with this older version whatever happens...?

although I rebooted several times after installing wicd my wireless connection was never found...however I go to work for 8hours, come home and it is working. Kinda like my mac.... if i try to boot it up after 8 hours it never launches the OS however if I reboot immediately after it has been running it works fine; go figure!

Something else mysterious.. if I enter the logical name of my network(wmaster0)
*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
product: RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI
vendor: RaLink
physical id: d
bus info: pci@0000:03:0d.0
logical name: wmaster0
version: 01
serial: 00:23:69:d8:d0:cc
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2500pci latency=64 module=rt2500pci


in the wicd\preference\wireless interface it doesnot work howevr if I put wlan0 it does.

*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI
vendor: RaLink
physical id: d
bus info: pci@0000:03:0d.0
logical name: wmaster0
version: 01
serial: 00:23:69:d8:d0:cc
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2500pci ip=192.168.1.9 latency=64 module=rt2500pci multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg



Although using wicd has solved the issue of disconnecting I am still at a speed of 1.5 mbps even though I entered script in wicd. My signal strength is 59dbm/using wep


Any suggestions?

[RavanH]

@acutshall1

Why wlan0 works and wmaster0 does not, i have no clue... Very strange.

Do you use wlan0 or wmaster0 in the pre-connection script?

What is the output of iwconfig in terminal window?

[acutshall1]

tried both; I also tried this

The script I picked was /etc/init.d/anacron, which I kludged as follows:
[quote]

(start of anacron script)
|
|
|
# Short-Description: Handle anac(h)ronistic cron
### END INIT INFO
# /etc/init.d/anacron: start anacron
#

PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin

# kludge to speed up wlan0
iwconfig wlan0 rate 36M
# end kludge

test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || exit 0

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

case "$1" in
start)
|
|
(etc)
[unquote]



does not make a difference, when I use speedcheck.net my speed is 1.5 download and 3.5 up.

Here is my Twindow

iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wmaster0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"6TJQE"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:242:68:4D:7E
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry min limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thr=2352 B
Power Managementff
Link Quality=70/100 Signal level:-59 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

pan0 no wireless extensions.

sudo lshw -C network





*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI
vendor: RaLink
physical id: d
bus info: pci@0000:03:0d.0
logical name: wmaster0
version: 01
serial: 00:23:69:d8:d0:cc
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2500pci ip=192.168.1.9 latency=64 module=rt2500pci multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg

Thanks

[RavanH]

@acutshall1,

you should definately be using wlan0 not wmaster0 (even though that is reported by lshw) so if you do in terminal

sudo iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M

then wait 20 or 30 seconds and try

iwconfig

again, you should be seeing that the line

...
Bit Rate=11 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
...

changed to

...
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
...

If it does, at least the script is working and something else is causing slow data throughput. If not, somehow your Wireless card is limited to 11Mb/s which it should not be since it reports being a "wireless=IEEE 802.11bg" card.

In any case, you download speed is much lower than it should be even with a 11M rate. Do you know if there are other access points in your neighborhood that are using the same channel (2.462 GHz = channel 11 if I am not mistaken) or channels close to yours (using channels 8 to 10 or 12+, if allowed) with any significant signal strength? Can you change your router to use a channel that is at least three channels away from any other channel used by a strong wifi signal in your neighborhood?

If you live in an apartment building and there are many wifi signals around using a wide spectrum or channels, choose a channel that overlaps with the weakest signal that you can find but has NO (or minimal) strong signals that are 2 or (better) 3 levels up and down from the chosen channel.

Hope i explained that clearly

[yo shu la]

Thank you RavenH.
I Am using Linux Mint "Gloria" and a real nOOb at all this. I found your guide a real gem and was pleased with myself for managing to follow it without making a real mess of things.
I presume you need to run the "Speed it up" script for each wireless network you connect too? If so is there a way around this.
Thank you again.
Yo Shu La!

[RavanH]

...
I presume you need to run the "Speed it up" script for each wireless network you connect too? If so is there a way around this.
Thank you again.
Yo Shu La!

Hi Yo Shu La, welcome to the Linux user community and thanks for your kind words!

Yes, you are right. The script will only be triggered when reconnecting to the network you have set the script up for. If you are roaming and constantly using new networks, it might be inconvenient for you to keep adding the same script to the new network, then disconnecting and reconnecting again to make it work...

An alternative would be to hit Alt+F2 (after each new connection where speed is again slow) and enter

gksudo iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M

(adapt to your wireless and preferred speed) and after a few seconds, the speed should go up. The command window will remember this command for the next time. Just do Alt+F2 again and hit the arrow down (either on your keyboard or by clicking the arrow next to the command field) and that same command can be used over and over again!

All the way at the end of the how-to, I gave some links to other threads with alternative methods. Most may seem a little more daunting for any newby but you might try.

I'll propose some global pre-connection script feature to the developers of Wicd. It would indeed be a nice improvement for RT2500 users that want full speed roaming!

EDIT: OK, the Wicd devs informed me that this is already possible with version 1.6+ and told me how on http://wicd.net/punbb/viewtopic.php?pid=2912 . I'll add the method to the How-to.

[Stefoufou]

Does this workaround work un Karmic ?

[RavanH]

Does this workaround work un Karmic ?

Have not tested that yet but asked elsewhere on another thread. I'd be interested to learn this too... Anyone gone there before?

[bruno321]

Worked perfectly in Kubuntu 9.10, thank you! The only difference is that the package network-manager-kde has changed to "plasma-manager" or something like that.