Greetings.
Whenever I get connected to the Internet in Linux (currently Slax 5.1.4) via my dad's EtherAnt II antenna, I consistently get 28 to 30 kbps download speed. In Windows, however, I can get the full 450 to 550 kbps that I should be getting.
This EtherAnt antenna sits on top of the house and connects wirelessly to a tower across town. It connects to my computer via a direct ethernet connection, no drivers needed. The Linux computer I connected it to is a homemade AMD Athlon 1 Ghz with 128 MB ram and SiS PCI900 Fast Ethernet onboard nic. My main goal here is to set up a gateway/firewall for my dad's lan.
I have tried everything I could possibly think of to resolve this, including:
* checking all cables to make sure they are securely connected
* using different cat5 cables
* trying another NIC
* making sure all IP addresses, gateway, dns, etc are correct
* trying another computer with Linux!
* trying several other distros (DSL, ClarkConnect, Smoothwall)
* connecting the EtherAnt to a switch, then to the computer (I thought perhaps the signal was degrading)
* eliminating any sources of interference
All of those actions (and almost every combination of them) produce exactly the same result: 28 to 30 kbps throughput. This is not intermittent. It's constantly 28 to 30.
There is only one thing that has allowed me to attain max throughput: connect the EtherAnt to a Windows XP PC (with two NICS); connect the XP PC to a switch; connect the Linux box to the switch. This "fixes" the problem!! However, it completely destroys my initial plan. Running a Linux PC through a Windows gateway is exactly the opposite of what any sane person would want to do, right?
So, what's the problem here? I've been doing some Googling on this EtherAnt II, but haven't found anything helpful yet. I do not know how to check the configuration (essid, etc) of it either. I suppose more googling is in order.
In the meantime, if anyone has a suggestion, I'd love to hear it!