Apparently I'm not a geek after all...

[c9]

Dear Lazyweb*,

I have two computers, a laptop and a desktop. They both use wireless to talk to a router, and the router talks to Bell and gives me sweet sweet internet. The laptop works 100% fine.

The desktop works fine on some websites, but hangs on others -- just sits there, trying to download the page, for minutes on end. It simply can't download pages from certain sites, like livejournal. But other sites work perfectly, no slowdown or anything. The desktop can talk to the router with no problems. The desktop can talk to the laptop with no problems. The desktop can even ping www.livejournal.com with no problems WHILE unable to load the webpage www.livejournal.com.

I reinstalled Windows XP from scratch today, and the exact same behaviour persists.

I erased all the configuration info from the router, and the exact same behaviour persists.

I have tested the laptop from the same location, same router, same website, same time, and had it work just fine.

In summary: AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH. What am I missing??

Sincerely, Cam

P.S. For those curious as to why this would bother me so much: I teach this shit. Argh!

* Lazyweb = I'm too lazy to figure it out on my own. Though in this case, I've been banging my head against the brick wall for a while now, so it's not to much laziness as self-preservation.

Comments

[jdhorner.livejournal.com]

I reinstalled Windows XP from scratch today, and the exact same behaviour persists.

this was your first step? what the hell are they telling you to teach people at that place...

i will offer my experience from yesterday: almost all day tobin and i could not access _most_ sites online, or, they would just barely start loading (like the title bar and that's about it). LJ barely worked, none of my forum sites worked that well, and even /. was crawling along (and sometimes worked and sometimes didn't)

due to your experience and ours, i would like to submit the theory that some major backbone networks must have had hiccups in canada yesterday.

cam... reinstall windows? do you _see_ what's wrong with that?

[c9.livejournal.com]

The problem has been going on for a while. It was *not* my first step.

cam... reinstall windows? do you _see_ what's wrong with that?

Windows sucks, I agree, but Mac sucks cause I have to spend $2000 to use it, and Linux sucks cause I have to spend weeks compiling and configuring to get equivalent functionality. Everything sucks.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

I have to spend weeks compiling and configuring to get equivalent functionality

Yes, very true. In 1999. Not so true any more. I know you need ndiswrapper, and that sucks and is a pain, but it's not the OS that's at fault because some silly hardware vendor won't release some specs on their silly hardware. I know it's *perceived* as a problem for the OS (or at least widespread adoption of the OS), but really, there is A TON of hardware out there that "just works" with Linux.

Anyway, my micro-rant doesn't really help with your problem :-)

I concur with Halimattfax, you need to wire it up and rule out the wireless card. After all you've gone through with this I'm about 99% certain it's an oddball interaction between your router and the card.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Very true, things are better than 1999. But Linux still does not match the desktop functionality and ease of use of Windows. I know why, I'm not judging, but it's a fact. Luckily, it's improving far faster than Windows is, meaning the gap narrows daily.

Gotta find a long wire somewhere. I just can't stand the idea of dragging the whole PC into the kitchen.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Hm, I don't know. If I were to just install GNOME and leave it alone, I think it would be easier to actually _use_ than Windows. Where you (well, I) get into trouble is the constant tweaking and playing around I like to do (for example, I'm building GNOME from scratch right now -- I want my wavy windows!!!)

On the desktop functionality front, I think Linux & OS X have Windows so beat that Windows just can't catch up -- it would take a complete change in the interface -- so complete, it wouldn't be "Windows" any more. Where I will agree that Linux doesn't match up to Windows is in the system administration field. Windows is much easier to administer for someone who doesn't really understand what they're doing. Of course, that also means it's easier to mess up. :-)

I spent three hours on Saturday re-installing drivers for Windows 2000 on a friend's laptop -- don't tell me Windows is easier to use :-)

[c9.livejournal.com]

1. You are not "user," so your mileage is not representative.

2. We're having different conversations, really. It's how each OS manages "install and everything just works," "install and one thing doesn't work," and "install and nothing works." Windows does really well with #1 (thanks to manufacturers and Microsofts' bullying), Mac OS X does perfectly with #1 (thanks to all that cash going to Apple), Linux does mediocre (thanks the the large variety of hardware in the world, and the small subset that has perfect support).

The other situations are far more fluid, and far more balanced.

Of course, I'm not advocating, I'm just bitching.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

I'm still not convinced. With the exception of laptops, I've found that Linux is more likely to have drivers for all the hardware on a desktop, whereas with Windows you usually need to install the manufacturer's drivers after the OS install.

But really, its not the OS's fault in either case. It's the hardware manufacturers'.

[c9.livejournal.com]

I'm less cranky about it now, so I'm nore willing to give Linux a fair shot. Today's mission (for you, since I'm teaching): find out if Mandrake (or hell, anybody) supports my linksys card out of the box. You could win a lollipop!

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

You need to find or build a kernel with 4K_STACKS set to N. The Fedora kernel is built with 4K_STACKS turned on, and that breaks ndiswrapper.

I know nothing about the kernels of other distros. I would bet, however, that Ubuntu or Mandrake will probably work -- they seem to take a less hardline approach to breaking things than Fedora does. :-)

See this howto on the Ubuntu site.

[c9.livejournal.com]

Thanks dude. Remember when I installed BSD, and you had me recompile the kernel, and the machine got trashed, and I ran away scared? I fear kernel recompiles no longer, I actually teach them sometimes. :)

So that's what I'm up to now. ndiswrapper caused nasty things to happen to my previous install, so I did a fresh install and installed the kernel source, etc. WHat fun. I neglected to install the graphical dev tools, so make xconfig wouldn't work. I'm installing them now.

Annoyance of the day*: anaconda (or whoever is responsible for add/remove components) doesn't know where the packages are on the CDs, so it asks for the same CDs over and over in random order as it works its way through my list of adds/removals.

* If that's the biggest annoyance of the day, I can deal. :)

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

There's a fix for that: "system-config-packages --tree={path to cd}" or even better --isodir={path to ISO images} -- you don't even need to burn 'em.

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-July/msg04610.html
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/004feb05/departments/tips_tricks/

[c9.livejournal.com]

Sweet, I'll have to take a look at that.