We have a problem
For the last month or so since I bought my Asus EeePC 1005HA, I’ve been wanting to throw the thing out of the window, such has my frustration been with it’s wireless performance.
Poor Wireless Performance
Whilst the laptop is a great little machine, since I installed Ubuntu Karmic on it, the wireless connection had been completely useless. At first, Network Manager would report great signal strength for wireless networks within range of the netbook. However, once connected to the access point, the wireless signal which was first reported at over 80% would rapidly deteriorate to something much lower, often below 30%. Even when the computer was within metres of the wireless access point, the connection speed would be incredibly slow and I frequently experienced wireless drops, especially when connecting to secure wireless networks.
Solution at hand
However, fear not. After doing much searching around on the internet it seems that there is a solution to this problem. I managed to find a bug on launchpad where other EeePC 1005HA users suggested that installing the “Karmic Wireless Backports Module” would make most of the problems go away. This module contains all the cutting edge wireless drivers for Ubuntu Karmic from the testing repositories which haven’t yet been officially released.
After installing the module via apt-get, I have experienced a 30% increase in wireless signal strength, a faster connection and no drops for the last half and hour or so, it would indeed seem that the problem is solved or at least much less annoying. Here are the steps you need to follow to install the backport modules:
Enable Karmic backports
First we need to enable the Karmic backports repository. Open up “Software Sources” and browse to the “Updates” tab, make sure the karmic-backports option is ticked.
Install the Karmic wireless backports module
Now open a terminal and enter the following commands to install the backports wireless module.
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-wireless-karmic-generic
Please note that it is not recommended to install linux-backports-modules-karmic-generic as it has been suggested in some posts as this may affect other things on your system apart from the wireless.
Once complete, reboot your computer and enjoy.
Tags: 1005HA, asus, backports, eeepc, karmic, module, Ubuntu, wireless
AWESOME!! That worked like a charm! I actually upgraded to karmic from jaunty to try and get better wireless support, but i was disappointed to find that it didn’t fix it. I was even having to use XP to get reception sometimes. But now, it is at least reporting a believable signal strength.
Next to the router it now reports 96% (used to be about 60%) and in the backyard it now says about 50%. Before the strength didn’t really increase the closer you got. I think it was just randomly guessing a number
Cheers man! You’ve made my day!
Glad that sorted your problems out too – I once again like my EeePC… this wireless issue was driving me crazy!
Good to see that you are seeing similar improvements in signal strength too. Are you still getting any drops or is the connection steady?
I’ve been looking for a solution like this for a while. Unfortunately, I’m using a minimalist offshoot of ubuntu, and I love it, but it’s based on jaunty.
Any way to get this to work on jaunty that you know of?
I’m afraid that the backports modules will only work in Ubuntu Karmic. I have however heard that using Ndiswrapper together with the windows driver for the wireless card under Jaunty works well. Search around on google, should be fairly straightforward.
Hi Jono,
Thanks for your article. This solved my problem, too. I recently installed the standard Ubuntu distro on my Eee 901 after having used Eeebuntu since I got it.
Until today, I was using the wired ethernet connection. I was surprised and disappointed by the unusable wireless speed, but installing the karmic wireless backport you mentioned fixed the problem.
I’ve subscribed to your blog’s RSS feed (using Google translate for some of the articles
) and disabled adblock on sprayfly.com (but you aren’t running any ads anyway 
)
Now, I’m going to update my own blog entry about Karmic on the Eee (http://blog.ghodmode.com/2009/11/karmic-on-eee-pc901.html) and reference your article.
Hi, glad to see that this solution seems to be working for quite a few people… please feel free to use any of the information in this blog entry in your own blog posts (provided you reference the original source) as the more people that know about this solution the better!
Jono
Back when I was running jaunty, I tried using the Ndiswrapper together with the windows driver – but it didn’t work. I didn’t try very hard at all though.
I haven’t noticed any drop-outs since I’ve came across your blog post. Although, I was struggling with drop-outs while backpacking around eastern-europe/turkey. I’ve only used wireless at home lately, but it does seem to work quite well. I have a much beter range.
I’m looking forward to the next version of ubuntu now!
Awesome! Didn’t even realise I had a problem. I stumbled upon this site looking for a video driver for my ubuntu 9.10 install on my netbook because page loading seemed sluggish – I thought it was a graphics driver issue. Installed the app per the directions above an wireless signal strength went from 2-3 bars to 4 bars (full strength). Awesome!
great… glad that that solved your issues too!
sounds like it works. might have to try it on my laptop.
You are my hero of the day. This resulted in tremendous improvement to the WLAN connection of my Ubuntu Netbook Remix (karmic) EEPC.
brilliant… spread the word!
Huge improvement in video streaming (NHL Live). Expect it to solve my Skype quality issues too. I’m running a Dell Inspiron 1420.
It works!!! Thank you!!
The wifi was the only thing keeping me from running linux by its self on this sucker. I was dual booting 7 and ubuntu b4 this.. Thanks for the tip!!
glad you can go back to a single boot ubuntu setup!
Sorry to be the one guy out, but how can you undo those changes? After I installed the backports and rebooted my wireless disappeared alltogether. The driver remained installed but I couldn’t activate the wireless card itself. Unless there’s a magical trick to getting my wireless card to start working again with the backports, I’d like to know how to roll back.
You just need to replace the install commands with autoremove commands and it should be back to as it was before:
That should do the job!
Perdon por hablar en español.
Me funciono perfectamente la intensidad de la señal aumento en un 40%.
Despues de instalarlo desactive los backports para evitar conflictos, no tuve complicaciones.
Hey – no need to apologise, the internet would be a boring place if everything was written in english!
Luckily I can read Spanish well but can’t speak much – hace cuatro años que ya no estudio español…
Glad this fix worked ok for you – removing the backports is probably a good idea to avoid any new update breaking your EeePC
I just installed UNR Karmic on my kid’s 1005HA…I’m disappointed with the video performance…even getting around the UNR desktop is jerky. Not sure what is going on…all updates are applied…the commands to fix the wireless and microphone issues are applied…when I monitor performance, processes aren’t using the CPU, but in the graphical CPU performance screen one of the CPUs appears to be staying near 100%, which could be the problem. Also could be a video driver issue. Bottom line, Windows XP Home performance is much better than my UNR, which is counter intuitive. There must be something I can do. Any ideas?
Hi Rob
I would have to say that graphics on my 1005HA are also a bit jerky at times – but certainly nothing like what you are reporting (almost 100% GPU use). I have however heard that the UNR menu can hog resources – so maybe you could try switching to a normal desktop view and see if that works any better?
If you find a solution do let me know – you may also consider filing a bug on launchpad?
Regards
Jono
Hi Rob, which model of the 1005ha do you have? I’m pretty sure that there are three of them with slightly different specs. I’ve got the one with the n280 processor, and the graphics work great! I can even turn on many of the compiz effects and they work very smoothly. This has only been since Karmic, Jaunty graphics weren’t very good.
I reckon it would be a driver issue – i.e. for some reason it could be using the wrong driver. What does it say when you run the command “lspci” ? On my setup I get:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
You could also look through the output of “dmesg” and see if there is anything in there about graphics driver issues.
If you haven’t done much customisation, I would try reinstalling. Or testing the graphics out on the live install cd. I found that to run pretty good
I also find the netbook interface slow. Not “jerky” but there are often delays in responsiveness. If they haven’t made any major improvements in it by the next realise, I will probably switch to the normal desktop edition
Hope that helps somehow…
Humphrey
I entered the command you suggested and it would seem that I have the same EeePC model as yourself – with the N280 processor and Intel Graphics.
It would seem that Rob’s problem is much more serious than the occasional slowness that I am experiencing and which you mentioned in your comment – the compiz windowing effects are actually quite smooth on my EeePC.
I was wondering what makes you think that this is a UNR issue? Are you suggesting that the standard Ubuntu distribution would run faster on the EeePC?
I use the standard ubuntu desktop on my netbook – but was under the impression that UNR is a lighter build of Ubuntu that runs fewer services at startup, is this not the case?
Thanks for your feedback…
Jono,
Yeah, I think the UNR is a lighter build, but I’m not sure in what way. Although, I did find myself having to apt-get stuff like the gimp, etc that comes with the normal ubuntu.
I did prefer the interface of the netbook interface in Jauny to the one in Karmic. It was faster, better laid out, and I loved how the files and folders were on the right. Oh, and you can’t get into the normal gnome interface. It’s not really “slow” but the netbook interface would probably be the least-responsive of the applications I run.
But compared to windows, it’s amazingly fast
Especially now that I’ve ditched firefox for chrome.
How does the standard edition work? Do you find you have enough vertical space?
Hi Humphrey
I have actually never really used the netbook remix interface – I started using UNR with Jaunty when you could still change the desktop mode. I then installed a Karmic alpha or beta release (can’t remember which) of UNR on my EeePC and then updated it to the stable version when that came out – at the time the alpha/beta also allowed you to switch desktop mode. After the update, I was therefore still able to use UNR with a normal GNOME desktop. I therefore have never tried the basic install on my EeePC – but will probably use this version when Lucid comes out.
I think you’re right though – all things are relative. And pretty much anything is faster than windows on these machines. I get around the vertical space issue on my EeePC by getting rid of the botton GNOME panel and using Chrome as my web browser – which saves a lot of screen real estate. I am pretty much able to use this machine as a fully functioning computer – except that things load a little slower due to the limited processing power.
Still – an impressive little machine with Ubuntu installed on it – I hope that things improve even more with the release of Lucid in April!
Hi Jono,
Yeah, I’m looking forward to Lucid! I remember reading somewhere that the aim was to be able to choose between netbook / normal gnome on the login screen. That’d work great
I quite like the concept of the netbook interface – especially how they have combined the taskbar, window titles and, system tray all into one bar.
Anyway, fingers crossed for april
Humphrey
Choosing between the netbook and normal desktop on login sounds like the best option – I look forward to Lucid coming out and am thinking of installing the Alpha on my other machine sometime soon to try out some of the new features and enjoy the speed increase!
Hi, thank you for this resolution, it has increased my signal from 40% to 100% on my HP laptop.
Excellent
Regards,
Chris
Great… didn’t realise that this solution worked for other laptop models too… I guess it must be using the same wireless chip…
Got a new acer aspire 5517 and got tired of Win7 crashing and getting slower on it.
Installed Ubuntu 9.10 and loved everything about it but the slowdown on my wireless.
This did the trick!
One issue still is bothering me. I have a wireless N router and my EEEPC connects at 135 Mbps in windows but only 54 in linux. This is a huge hit in performance. I have seen no fix for wireless N speeds including backport.
I do lots of downloads through N routers and I must say this is a Linux deal breaker for me. I hate to have to use Windows as I have been a loyal Linux user for many years.
Hey Gary
I’m guessing that wireless N support has not yet been included in the kernel for this wireless adapter. As frustrating as this may be, I am sure that it will only a matter of time before such support is added. Just out of interest – if you are using Ubuntu, have you tried the Linux Alpha on a Live CD or USB setup to see if there is wireless N support available in the upcoming release?
This is indeed a big shame for linux – but like most hardware issues, it’s probably not the fault of the developers but rather the lack of cooperation of hardware manufacturers with the open source community…
Thanks for your comments. I use this EEEPC 1005HA for my everyday system. I have 10 MB cable here and speedtest.net shows those speeds when I am running XP wireless. But in Linux I see over 50% drop in speed. On 600 MB downloads this makes a huge difference.
I have been an advocate of Linux and suffered through the early days when nothing worked. I kept the faith that things would get to a point where Linux could be offered as a real alternative to Microsoft. Yes, it is better but not mainstream. My wife for example who is not an average no nothing user can not adapt to the limitations. How can the computer illiterate ever be expected to make a move from windows to Linux? I guess I must admit after all these years that I might have been beating a dead horse.
But I would have thought to be competitive Linux would have matured more by now. My desktop system is forced to run XP because so much hardware is not fully supported and now my laptop joins the ranks. For the first time in 10 years I have no Linux installed on any of my machines. I just have too much work to do to spend all my time chasing hardware fixes for things the competition in most cases have mastered.
I will check the sources you suggest and in the mean time I will hope that Linux witll again be on my system.
Hi Gary
It is interesting that your Linux experience varies so much from my own. I run Ubuntu Linux on a laptop and a netbook and have very few problems with hardware compatibility. Through running Linux, the system literally flies and doesn’t suffer from the usual slowdowns that encumber windows systems after a few months of general use. In fact, I find that Linux has a lot of functionality built in that windows is not able to offer me – such as window tiling, multiple workspace and handy window switching functionality similar to that on Macs.
Yes OpenOffice is still inferior in some ways to Microsoft Office. Yes there are some windows programs that don’t run on Linux. But I would say that finally – the same is beginning to be true in the other direction. There are now some brilliant programs for the linux platform that simply have no equivalents on Windows. In the end, making a few compromises is worth the effort considering how much Linux allows me to improve my productivity in general – especially when I spend as much time in front of the computer as I do.
As for beating a dead horse – I think that such a phrase may be somewhat excessive. If you consider how much Linux has moved on in the last couple of years then I don’t think such a phrase does the developers justice. When I first started using Linux five years ago, I had to compile and install my own wireless drivers just to get an internet connection and almost everything had to be done via the command line. Now, that has changed completely. Ubuntu works straight off the CD on the majority of modern PC hardware these days and packages can be installed and removed effortlessly. I think that within another year or two, Linux is going to be a serious competitor and a viable alternative for those people who don’t want to fork out cash for inferior and dirty microsoft products.
Finally, I would disagree that Linux is hard to use for new users. I recently setup ubuntu on my friend’s laptop and he is now a complete convert. Whilst he probably wouldn’t have been able to set things up without my help, I would argue that once everything is in place, it’s actually easier to use a linux operating system than a windows one – automatic software and security updates for all programs, good protection against malicious software, amazing stability, no blue screen of death and rare freezes. And in the end, I don’t think that setting up a windows system would have been any easier. In fact, it would be harder. You would have to manually search for and install relevant drivers after installing the operating system and spend an entire afternoon simply downloading some basic software packages to have a basically functional system…
I think there is much to be optimistic about and I would be very surprised if Linux doesn’t take off within a year or two – especially with the new market that netbooks have brought along and with backing from companies such as Google, Dell and IBM…
Would you not agree?
Yeah, I agree with you Jono!
Each version of Ubuntu is just getting better. Windows annoys the crap out of me these days. I tried to install XP on a friends laptop the other day, and it took me hours to find all of the right drivers… actually, I couldn’t even find the correct video driver! Ubuntu worked 100% though
The only reason that windows has a step ahead of linux with drivers and stuff, is that the stupid manufactors often only write drivers for windows. So it sometimes takes time for new h/w to fully work under linux.
If wireless-n speeds are the only reason you need to use windows, I would recommend jumping on ebay, buying a linux compatible -n card and swapping it for the one that comes with your computer… probably cost you less that $20, which is cheaper than a windows licence
I would also add that the hardware driver situation may also improve drastically very soon if companies such as Dell start selling a significant amount of computers with Ubuntu pre-installed or indeed if Google or their partners starts selling Chrome OS notebooks.
From a more general perspective, as soon as not providing Linux specific drivers puts hardware manufacturers at a strategical disadvantage compared with their competitors, to the extent where they may lose money or see their market share decrease, I think they will get their act together and we will start to see lots more hardware being supported from square one. Unfortunately the problem at the moment is that not enough new computers come with Linux pre-installed on them, which means that we are always playing a game of catchup, adding support for new hardware a few months down the line from release…
Yeah, unless you live in Australia… then there is barely a computer that you can buy with linux pre-installed. Most manufacturers seem to only offer a sub-set of their models here… and guess what, they are all Windows based….
The netbook range between dell usa, and dell australia is very different!
The few that do (eg. hp mini) have their own custom distro which everybody that I know who has one, has replaced with ubuntu.
Anyway, that’s my whine of the day
Yeah… it’s interesting how use of Linux varies across the continents. It’s not very popular here in Britain, nor in the USA either for that matter – yet on the European continent it is becoming increasingly popular with many government administrations now putting Linux or open source software on their machines to keep overheads at a low and prevent being dependent on large (American) corporations…
Yes you are correct in many of your comments. And don’t get me wrong, I hope every day that Linux can beat Microsoft at their own game. As an IT professional I have given advice to many people that includes the advantages of Linux.
Unfortunately for me, I use bleeding edge technology in my systems and constantly upgrade to the newest hardware as soon as it is available. This is where my Linux problems have surfaced.
I tried Ubuntu on my desktop and had issues with motherboard, CPU, Video drivers. Yes they worked but I lost many of the features that made me purchase this high end hardware.
I just put Windows 7 (free Upgrade) on that machine and achieved full functionality on all hardware with native drivers.
Someon made a comment on wifi speed about buying another wifi device to get Linux compatibility. Please do not take me wrong but I should not have to purchase hardware just to get Linux to work. My card works perfectly with 150 MBs connection speed in Windows.
I am not a windows lover and I would much rather run linux. I am just a demanding user who expexts my OS to work with my machine no matter how new it is.
Gary – I think you have a point. Whilst Linux works great on fairly new computers, when using cutting edge hardware, I think that the only operating system which offers full driver support is windows. Linux is always chasing from behind and I don’t think that this will change until manufacturers start cooperating more with the open source community – hopefully sooner rather than later!
I think that within a year or two you might be able to move across to Linux entirely though… I guess we just have to wait and see how things pan out.
Well, I’m just trying out Lucid Alpha 3, netbook edition at the moment. I’m just running it off the live-usb, but first impressions are good:
Out of the box:
And another option that’s called netbook 2d, but I haven’t tried that yet.
– Wifi seems to working as it does with the karmic backports
– Mic appears to be working
– There is now a choice between regular gnome and netbook interface on the login screen
So looks like lucid might be a winner for the eeepc!
Humphrey – I too am itching to try out the Lucid Alpha 3 (I tend to hop on the bandwagon when the third Alpha of each release comes out – normally by this time the operating system is fairly stable and functional).
Unfortunately I am snowed under with uni work at the moment so I will have to wait until the easter break before I can risk breaking anything! It will be great to have full support of the wireless and microphone without the backports and I think the choice of desktop interface on the logon menu is a neat idea – if it is a shared computer than advanced users can opt for a full desktop whilst basic users can have an easy to use launcher interface.
Look forward to trying it out – does it feel any snappier than Karmic (which is already damn fast!)