[ltp] Re: spotty wireless with t520 w/Intel wifi and xubuntu 13.04

Michael Livshin linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Mon, 28 Oct 2013 08:42:40 +0200


Sean Leonard <meanderingcode@aetherislands.net> writes:
> Thanks for the patch!  Where is it from, that it may be tracked and
> discussions or changes followed?

All two lines of it are from my head.  I think I picked the idea of
where to dig from some thread in the Fedora Bugzilla, but I'm hazy on
that now.

> Also, I wouldn't tweak the version, but tell apt to "hold" it:
> 'echo "network-manager hold" | dpkg --set-selections'
> Or whichever appropriate NM spin you have.
> And 'echo "network-manager install" | dpkg --set-selections' to remove that
> hold and allow for upgrading.

Thank you for that, should make my life easier when NM next updates.

>> Or perhaps (*gasp*) you'd expect sane distributors to just
>> fix the stupid problem in their packaged versions, right?  Right.)
>
> More deviations from Upstream makes more work.  Ideal changes are handled
> automagically and all tests pass and bugs don't multiply, but that is for
> the good cases.

And changes that are ideologically opposed by Upstream take the most
work, not to mention noise.  I hear you.

On re-googling and re-reading about the background scanning problem, it
appears that the behavior is actually not at all new, and is there at
least since 2010.  Google presents several stories that all seem to go
like this:

- Some guy notices wifi drop-outs/disconnects/lags every two minutes,
  opens a bug on his distro's bug tracker.

- Discussion ensues, tubes get clogged with logs and me-toos and me-toos
  with logs, nothing of interest happens.

- The driver of the original guy's network card gets updated, his
  symptoms vanish (could be temporary, but no way to know for sure --
  this is archeology), bug gets closed.

- Or: bug gets closed because the distro version it has been opened
  against is not supported any more.  For all we know the original
  reporter had since changed distros, smashed his computer, seen the
  light and defected to the shiny dark side (they have fruit), or lost
  interest for another reason -- no way to know either.

Lather, rinse.

HTH,
--m