Let's face it wifi is shit.

It stops working at random times, your neighbour can share a channel and drop your bandwidth, it doesn't reach everywhere you want and the bloody microwave toasts it.

On android there are a couple of wifi diagnostic tools, but what is there for linux that will explain what the wifi chip on my laptop is doing and thinking and hearing?

There several command line tools for wireless iwconfig, iwspy and iwpriv are probably the main ones.

Wireless does have its problems. In a nutshell its how wireless and RF works and there are many many factors that affect wireless signals.

Microwave ovens and 2.4 GHz wireless operate on basically the same frequencies. If your oven is interfering with the wireless signal its leaking and your door seals are dirty or just old and/or your using your devices way to close. Basically RF energy decreases at the square of the distance. At 50 cm the signal strength is 1/100 of its value at 5 cm. The same is true for any other 2.4GHz wireless devices like baby monitors. Their RF energy output is higher then most internet wireless and will interfere with the signal.

How many devices and bandwidth that can be on your wireless internet is hardware dependent. As a simple example, if your router or access point is a single antenna system its basically going to divide its time between each connected device. The more devices connected the slower the speed.

The only perfect signal is if the router or access point is in free space i.e in a empty field hovering at least a few feet in the air. Any obstacle between your network device and the router will attenuate the signal. The farther away you are from the router or access point the lower the signal strength and the slower the speed.

Its also possible your laptop is not using the latest driver or the output signal has gotten weaker.

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Ah.. just spotted my problem. Search apt for wifi anything turns up nothing. My guess is because it's trademark.

The keyword to search for is "wireless".

If your neighbor is sharing your wifi and you want to stop that then there are several configs that can (at least temporarily) stop that.

1. Change the SSID and make it hidden
2. Change the password to connect and make sure it is secure.
3. Allow connection from only specified MACs.

Those are the simplest and really can help, although there are other less obvious configs as well.

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You can stop them sharing your internet connection.... but you can't stop them choosing and using the same RF frequency channel as you.

You gotta be kidding !!!. I've been putting up with similar interference as the OP forever. Just kicked over to the 5GHz channel and it all (for now anyway) went away. I've generally avoided it as the more limited range was perceived a problem. Will see which is the bigger problem.

Thank you for the input.

Ovens operate close to the wifi 8-11 channels so changing to a lower number should help some too. Switching to 5GHz should increase your speed buts its range is less then 2.4 mainly because its a higher frequency.

Paranoid much?

That is a part of life, and sharing frequency channels is a factor of the service. Most wifi APs are auto-selecting for channel, usually choosing the least active channels when a connection is made. We may not like it, but it is what it is and either we put up with it or we choose not to use the wifi.