[SOLVED] Pathetic wireless internet

[parth]

Ok, the title might be a kind of an exhasperated statement, but for a guy who spends a lot of time on the internet, this works.
So nowadays, most of the time , i find myself staring at the screen with my browser still opening the page for minutes altogether. It feels Im back in the old dial-up days, except here when the page finally starts to load it does fully, in an instant. I'm using a 30mbps connection! Yes I do agree that sometimes it works fine with speedtest showing me proper speed.

Synopsis:
I have a dual boot asus laptop with w7 and f16. The Wireless card is realtek 8188CE and i have installed the RTL8192CE drivers.
In win7 I'm not facing any problem, the internet is working just fine.
While in fedora, the wifi connection is never broken, but still internet is non repsonsive.


Apart from a possible solution, is there a way to trace the error, like looking for lost packets or something?
I want to sort out this issue anyhow, cause I moved to f16 from ubuntu cause of the same

[Geek McBean]

The fact that you had the same symptoms with Ubuntu suggests that the problem may not be with your OS. Do you get the same problem with Windows 7? If you do then the problem is more likely to do with your wireless router/AP or that you have a lot of RF interference.

In any event, however exasperated you are you will get more helpful replies if your posting has a technically meaningful subject and you post all of the relevant technical information that you have.

[parth]

No I'm not facing any such problem in win7..I've also edited my post. Thanks Geek Mcbean

[BBQdave]

Originally Posted by parth

cause I moved to f16 from ubuntu cause of the same

Is your system up to date? I had issues with kernel linux update 3.3.7 in F16, broke my wireless connection.
Ultimately I updated to F17 and kernel linux 3.4.0 and network manager updates. Wireless connection worked, but F17 ended up buggy on my machine.

Currently I am running Linux Mint 13 (64-bit) MATE, with the kernel linux 3.2.0 (long term kernel). So far a stable distro with no wireless issues.

My hardware is Linux friendly (Toshiba Satellite C655), so I was surprised with the wireless breakage and buggy distro from Fedora. Happy with Maya though

[parth]

Yes my system is up to date.

Currently I am running Linux Mint 13 (64-bit) MATE, with the kernel linux 3.2.0 (long term kernel)

So is there a stable kernel for fedora too, nonetheless i thought it is advisable to update system from time to time.

My hardware is Linux friendly (Toshiba Satellite C655)

So what WiFi card do you have, i feel mine has bad support from Linux in general

[RHamel]

Sounds like DNS problem to me. What is in your /etc/resolv.conf

[parth]

# Generated by NetworkManager
domain umd.edu
search umd.edu
nameserver 128.8.76.2
nameserver 128.8.74.2

This is not my home n/w, i'm at college..

[RHamel]

?? So are you saying it works at school, but not at home?

or the opposite.

---------- Post added at 12:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:20 PM ----------

There are some things you can try:

You can turn off IPV6.

You could use other Nameservers, such as Google's.

[parth]

?? So are you saying it works at school, but not at home?

or the opposite

sorry for the confusion, i'm facing this problem everywhere, be it college or home..

You can turn off IPV6.

I've already done that..

[BBQdave]

Originally Posted by parth

Yes my system is up to date.

So is there a stable kernel for fedora too, nonetheless i thought it is advisable to update system from time to time.

Currently I am running Fedora 16 (64-bit) XFCE with kernel linux 3.3.8 (up to date). Everything is working fine. For me, the issues with wireless and buggy systems seems to be Gnome 3 (and the close cousins - Unity and Linux Mint). Once I switched to Xfce - no worries, which is what I originally ran with no issue - then tried Gnome 3 distros and trouble.

I would offer that Xubuntu or F16 Xfce may be good options for a less buggy (web surfing) experience. I say this because the puzzle for me, is that you are able to connect through wireless - but not able to surf the web. This would appear to be issues with resolving dns or perhaps you are missing a key (secure login to your server) for your ISP.

If everything works in Windows 7, try to duplicate that configuration in your linux system. And too, as you have said, it is good to keep your system up to date.

[parth]

Once I switched to Xfce - no worries

If nothing else works, this is my fall back option...possibly you're right with the problem pertaining to gnome 3. But then aren't the wireless drivers supposed to handle everything related to wireless communication? I thought gnome and xfce were only the front end...

This would appear to be issues with resolving dns or perhaps you are missing a key (secure login to your server) for your ISP

Then only my web surfing should get affected right? I'm facing connection problems with Thunderbird and system update too...

I was trying my hand at iwconfig and iwlist commands....Are there any commands or a method to troubleshoot a wireless connection?.. Because my wireless connection is established all the time

[BBQdave]

Originally Posted by parth

I was trying my hand at iwconfig and iwlist commands....Are there any commands or a method to troubleshoot a wireless connection?.. Because my wireless connection is established all the time

ifconfig should show what is going on with your wireless connection, relevant info most likely under wlan0.

You say you are connected but no programs can access the web. This is a random shot, but have you tried shutting off your firewall in Fedora and/or the device broadcasting the internet? This would be odd if your firewall is blocking you, because when you configure (select wireless network host) in the network manager, that is part of what is set up - the connection (through the firewall of Fedora) to the external internet (broadcast device of your ISP).

I have a dual boot asus laptop with w7 and f16. The Wireless card is realtek 8188CE and i have installed the RTL8192CE drivers. Why did you install the 8192ce driver?

from what I am seeing, the 8188ce realtek driver is good for kernel linux up to 3.2.x.
It is very likely that your (up to date) system broke the wireless with the newer kernels - which hopefully is not a major issue to resolve: remove realtek drivers and the newer kernel (in your up to date system) should handle the wireless card.

[parth]

That's a good point. I just shut off my firewall, lets see what happens..

Just to be clear, rolling back to kernel 3.2.x and then installing 8188ce driver is what you suggest? Definitively worth a try..

So I think downloading the kernel and installing will add an entry in the grub right? And then I should install the 8188ce drivers...
If this works i can safely uninstall my current kernel..

Also could you please shed light on some commands to uninstall the drivers..

[parth]

So I disabled my firewall and added two new google dns servers, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in the /etc/resolv.conf file.
And so far my connection is all good! So the problem was resolving a dns query.
But today I got an error alert from SE linux, saying AVC denial. When I saw the details, it said that the network manager had tried an 'unlink' type of access on the resolv.conf file ???
And it gave me 3 possible solutions. Any ideas on what was this. I would have ignored this but the internet has started to suck again. And this time I took the pain to read the message displayed by my browser, resolving DNS failed...
I also added two new nameservers to the list, but no avail

[RHamel]

Well if you edited resolv.conf directly you might have changed the Selinux attributes of the file.

[root@riverrun ~]# ls -alZ /etc/resolv.conf
-rw-r--r--. root root system_u:object_r:net_conf_t:s0  /etc/resolv.conf

If you change the DNS's you can do it through netmanager

You can reset the Selinux attribute

restorcon -v /etc/resolv.conf