OT: For all the Window haters

mm0fmf · 2015-08-05T20:47:32+00:00

There's plenty of Windows haters in this group so here is something just for them. Normally Windows is the OS with all the latest support for the devices and Linux is the OS that has issues. Sometimes due to manufacturers who wont release the necessary info to the open source world. (Broadcom!) So... I bought a new AC1200 802.11ac router yesterday. Works like a dream and I'll OpenWrt it this weekend if I get time. My company laptop has 802.11ac Wifi and I get 867Mbps on 5GHz and 300Mbps on 2.4GHz. My own laptop only has an old 802.11n Wifi adapter that connects at 72Mbps on 2.4GHz. Time to get a better mini PCIe Wifi card. Where I work we have about 12000 employees and so 12000 Windows laptops exist. We run them for 3 years till the warranty expires then they get given to charities. In my office we tend keep them for an extra 18months used to mimic customer software environments, say Japanese Win7 plus our software or Ubuntu rather than RedHat. Anyway they all have Wifi so I thought I'd pull a few cards and try them at home, find our which one works best and get one of those from eBay for a few pounds. 1st up Intel Advance 6200-AGN, dual band, 802.11n 300/300Mbps. Popped it into my laptop, boot Mint 13xcfe, Wifi works, connect on 5GHz, 150Mbps best speed, good throughput. Onto 2.4GHz and 300Mbps everytime and really good throughput. The 5GHz performance was not so good but I was hoping the driver will have moved on when I get round to upgrading to Mint17. Time to try Windows. Boot same PC into Win7 64bit and there's no Wifi but a new network adapter was found wanting drivers. No driver found using Windows Update, time for Intel's website. I downloaded the driver scanner (which was a big bloaty piece of software) and it ran with all sorts of animated nonsense and identified a newer motherboard driver and the Wifi driver. Another 28MB and 92MB download later (92MB for a Wifi driver !!!!!) and I ran the installer, more animations and several...