Hello everyone,

Yesterday I installed Ubuntu 7.04 on my dell E1505 laptop and I can already tell I love it. Yesterday I spent a few hours setting my computer up via tutorials on ubuntuforums.org which were really helpful! When i got my wireless set up I noticed that I'm only getting 3/4 bars but when I was in windows I was getting full strength from my wireless router. My questions are is that just because Linux measures signal strength differently than windows? Or do I need to download a program such as netstumbler that will help sniff out and get me better signal strength? Thanks for any help! I'm looking forward to learning.

If you are connecting to the same wireless access point using both Windows and Linux then the difference in signal strength is probably just due to different programmers writing the software.

As far as sniffing out networks I've run Kismet a few times but I haven't really figured it out. I know that there are enough wireless detecting applications for Linux to be very confusing. My distribution's wireless configuration applet works a lot like the Windows wireless connection manager. It's very easy to use and it finds all of the frequencies that have a carrier signal.

If you want to increase your wireless card's signal strength, you can try compiling your own driver/module rather than use the one that comes with your distributions kernel (which is in /lib/modules/uname -r/kernel/drivers/net/wireless, and will be called ipw2200.ko for ipw2200). Because you have a Dell, I'm betting you have an Intel PRO 2200BG wireless card. The TX-Power (transmission power) is pre-set at 20 in the Linux driver, not sure about Windows, but I have a feeling it's the same.
Because I'm a hacker, and I do digital forensics, I compiled my own driver/module and jacked up the TX-Power for ease of tapping into wireless networks off the street. How to do this? just look for "Jo Shmo's" post in the thread link below:
http://tinyshell.be/aircrackng/forum...&topic=400.195