Is there an app to determine wifi strength or speed?

[mikeslr]

Hi mikeb,

I forgot about this thread. Been experimenting with video, so wasn't looking for things in general to read.

Thank you and patriot for the app.

In the basement, two floors below the router, I get "56%" in Slacko 5.6 and raring 3.9.9.2 both with frisbee. I'll add comparisons as I switch to other pups.

I take it the the "%" should be read watts RMS?

mikesLr

[mikeb]

patriot is yer man.... Just call me 'Friendly Fire' associate member of the sidekicks union.

mike

[greengeek]

I have a strong feeling that recent pups --precise, slacko, but especially raring-- although they enable an internet connection via wifi, do not work as efficiently as Lupu.

Hi Mike, I have experienced variable wifi connection strengths between different puppies, and wonder if it is something to do with the firmware, or the way the wifi interface is initialized.

I tried to explain my results recently in another thread:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 488#751488
Interested to know if you see the same effect I do...

[peebee]

Changed the right click action to call defaultconnect - recompiled - made a pet to put it into /root/Startup instead of /usr/bin so it starts automatically.

Seems to work OK on Slacko5.6.5.2 (actually LxPup derivative)....mainly shows the yellow medium strength for me although I have seen it turn red but not yet green

Cheers
peebee

[mikeb]

Yes handy little app..

Something that always seemed to be absent in linux land.

mike

[Wognath]

I take it the the "%" should be read watts RMS?

it's signal quality on a scale from 0 to 70.

EDIT:

Code: Select all

# iwconfig wlan0 | grep -i quality
          Link Quality=55/70  Signal level=-55 dBm

I don't know how it's calculated...The tooltip in wifitray maxes out at 70%

[mikeb]

milliwatts maybe or a figure of signal density/quality in some decibel based unit at a guess

Watts rms would grab the attention of the FCC and would provide wifi in the next town.

Perhaps its a figure of how much it warms the kids up


mike

[Wognath]

from iwconfig man page:

Link quality
Overall quality of the link. May be based on the level of contention or interference, the bit or frame error rate, how good the received signal is, some timing synchronisation, or other hardware metric. This is an aggregate value, and depends totally on the driver and hardware.

wifitray reads /proc/net/wireless which appears to give the same signal quality and signal level numbers. At least on my machine, it reports numbers from 0 to 70.

[mikeb]

hmm so who came up with 70 ??.... well older and slightly wiser

mike

[peebee]

The attached pet is ONLY for use on 32-bit woof-ce puppies - i.e. as of now Slacko 5.6.5.2

It:
- uses stock woof-ce svg icons
- installs into /root/.config/autostart - NOT /root/Startup
- calculates % strength based on 70 max

Cheers
peebee

[Wognath]

Too much free time! (data from iwconfig)

[Ted Dog]

once during a regional emergency my pop cranked his ham radio to highest international limit minus a few hundred watts... The Tower tip and isolation tie down parts where glowing red.. sounded like a bug zapper. Was the only thing people could get on radios for blocks...
Second time I was at summer camp and heard my dad on the Army heliocopter radio 60 miles away. there is a famous Texas song called TEXAS flood based on that event. oh the Army heliocopter was dropping off generators at the water blocked camp we where stuck.
Could not convinced the army guys to let me talk to him on the emergency radio.

[peebee]

amigo asked me to post the amended c code

I didn't keep the code for the 1st version

but the only change was to make it open defaultconnect on line 72

the amended code for the woof-ce version is attached - remove the false .gz

[Wognath]

Edited 5/2/14 to include only script + icons
Edited to use Jan 2013 revision of sit

I am in the trial period with a new ISP, so I made a script that checks internet connection as well as wifi quality, inserts an icon in the tray and logs the results. I hope this is useful to someone, but it may need to be adapted, depending on the output of iwconfig on your system.

The tray icon requires technosaurus' sit binary: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76431, included in Fatdog.
The icons should be in /usr/share/wifi-icons. The quality cutoffs for the icons are arbitrary, but make sense to me.

The script will work as is if $(iwconfig wlan0 | grep Link) reads "Link Quality=65/70..." Otherwise it will need to be modified to extract out that quality number. (iwconfig output is device dependent, according to man page)

The log file records wifi quality from 0-7 or "-" for no wifi, or "_" for no internet, lines 19 & 41.

To test internet connection the script pings google.com.

[Sky Aisling]

@mikeb

Hello mikeb,

I've downloaded wifi tray program into Precise Puppy-571.

I get no joy when I clickup wifitray.

Do I have it in the right directory?

[mikeb]

Ah yes...well it was not a complete project as such ...I just grabbed it to demonstrate.... if you srcoll further down you will find the icons I forgot to include....

Otherwise one of the other posters offerings might be useful.

mike