Hi everyone.
Just registered my copy of morphos 3.11, on my powerbook g4 17”
My question is this: what type of wifi encryption does morphos/powerbook support or like to see???
I just cannot connect via wifi, Ethernet is fine, as are my other devices on my network, but try as I might I simply cannot do it.
I’ve searched the various threads on here trying to find an answer, but cannot...
I think I’m right in saying that the powerbook only supports 2.4ghz 54mbs wifi, but what type of encryption standard does the powerbook g4/morphos combination need to see.
If it helps, I’m using a virgin media cable modem, based in the UK
Thanks in advance Lee.

WPA2/PSK. Does your WLAN show up in the settings/wifi screenbar? If you have a working connection on Linux, you may just copy the settings from there into env:sys/wireless.prefs.

Hi jacadcaps.
Yes, I see both my 2.4ghz wifi ssid's, but not the 5ghz one obviously, on morphos network settings!! Sometimes the coloured button goes green, but more often than not it changes colour...
Wpa2/psk? Can the apple wireless card in the pwb g4 support that??? I don't have linux by the way

Regards Lee 👍

I use my powerbook connecting wifi with my mobile phone, and it works, sometimes the powerbook doesn't connect fine, but others yeah.

I see somebody on here mentioned turning off the 'loopback' function in wifi settings! Would this help at all, and what does it do please???

Regards Lee

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WPA2/PSK is now the standard. Never use anything else these days.

How wifi routers and adapters interact has always been a problem - they work 99% of the time, but there's that 1% of times that's just really annoying. I once had this with a DLink router and a laptop and found that using a fixed IP address to connect (rather than getting it from DHCP) worked better every time.

Should have a look at your router logs and see what's happening.

It's really frustrating,trying to get it set up with wifi. I'll just have to use wired ethernet, at least it'll be 108mbs.
Shame really cause it kind of defeats the purpose of having a laptop.
Cheers Lee 👍

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When it goes green, it should be connected and network is up. I would try to get that situation from the Network prefs, and when you get that, save the settings. If network doesn't seem to be up, reboot just in case, and see if it's automatically up after the reboot.

MorphOS/Macs can also be little sensitive to signal quality, and it might be that you lose too much packets and it's not reliable to even establish the connection. How far is the router, could you try closer? What channel settings you have in the router? I would suggest to try to set wireless channel to 1 or 6 to test if that'd make any difference. Automatic setting can lead to non optimal channels.

How WIFI actually works is a bit weird.

At home, my PowerBook under MorphOS will connect immediately from any room and the bandwidth is excellent. The same PowerBook under MacOS X will only connect from the main room (close to the router)...

[ Edited by Jeckel 25.01.2019 - 16:29 ]

Hi.
And thanks for all the replies.
I was thinking about changing the wifi channels to 1 or 6, but am unsure if you can do that on an individual basis!
Would the router only do that on a 'global’ basis... i.e. would all devices have to move to the new channels, or could I just set powerbook g4/morphos laptop to the new channel(s)???

Regards Lee.

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This only works globally.

That said, your other devices should connect just fine after changing channels. Some routers are even preconfigured to choose a different channel automatically if there are other networks using the previously used channel in your neighbourhood.

As jPV suggested, you may want to place your Powerbook close to your router (i.e. same room) for a first-time set up. Once you know everything is properly configured, you can then move the Powerbook around to see what the reception is like in different rooms. Reception is affected both by signal strength as well as interference from other networks. Your idea of switching channels is a good way of testing if interference from other networks may prevent your Powerbook from connecting.

ok.
seems to be working fine on the powerbook, as i'm writing this, via wifi...
regards Lee

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Wifi adapters on computers don't care about the channels. They just connect and autoconfigure. It's a purely router/access point setting.

The only exception is if you use channel 13, which I used to (because it's usually really clear), and adapters with North American drivers just can't see the SSID. Seriously - it isn't a legal channel over there.

Channel 6 is the most crowded channel of all 2.4GHz, so I'd avoid that if you could - many people squat on that one without even bothering to check others, and worse still they use dual band 2.4GHz to get more bandwidth, which crowds out the nearby channels as well.

In city blocks, 1 or 12 are usually the least crowded. Use Wifi Analyzer on Android or Windows to see what people are using nearby and avoid clashing with other strong signals. Better still, if your router has an Auto channel setting, use it.

[ Edited by KennyR 26.01.2019 - 19:22 ]

I once found several references that Macs (at least ones from the age we use) don't quite like channels over 10, so when trying to get better performance, I would stick with lower ones, so 1 or 6 from the optimal ones, but maybe we should say 1 would be the safest bet to try first then :) At least it has worked fine here, while auto setting is mostly horrible...

I have 22 SSIDs visible to me, half 2.4GZ and half 5Ghz. Nine of the 2.4GHz are on channel 6, the rest on channel 11. All the 5Ghz ones and are on channel 36. All of them. And this is not a crowded city area.

People are idiots and shouldn't be allowed to have wifi. Or to be fair, ISPs are idiots and don't even bother setting up their customer's wifi properly.

Just so you know what you're up against...

[ Edited by KennyR 27.01.2019 - 17:49 ]

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Ok, that just confirms that my suggestion of trying the channel 1 would be a good idea :)