It's opaque on Linux, but that's not the big problem. It's opaque on OS X and Windows as well, but nobody cares because it works.
I wonder if we'll eventually get the kind of stability that we currently have with ethernet drivers... once the speeds are high enough that we stop upgrading, once the chips go into long-term production instead of changing every few years, once things settle down...
I disagree. It's possible to get advanced output from various command line tools in Linux, and it's possible to get networking information. It's much more difficult to do that on other OSs, especially Windows. I loathe debugging network troubles in Windows, because there is essentially no information. OS X has most of your standard tools, though some in some odd places, e.g., printing the routing table not being done with `route`.
Furthermore, I care. My 2013 Macbook Pro is terribly slow to associate to even nearby APs, and drops the connection often. I have no idea why, because it is opaque: how do you list nearby APs? their signal strength or encryption type? I didn't learn this until just now, and it's,
Seriously. There's no way I'll remember it, and if you're reaching for it, you likely can't Google it. And it appears to be deprecated. It's a much shorter command in Linux, and in general I find it easier to determine if the problem is the network connection or DHCP failure. IIRC, Network Manager's icon changes — admittedly not much – depending on which one it's on, so even without command line tools, I have some idea what's going on.
OS X has the troubleshooter dialog, but that's never been able to fix the problem. (In general, I feel, those things never do. They also never tell you what they're doing. For all I know, they're just progress bars and timers.) WiFi off, WiFi on fixes a lot of problems.
Open Wireless Diagnostics in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications, then click Window -> Utilities. Gives lots of detailed info, frame capture, logging, etc.
airport -s is incredibly important in setting up roaming correctly with heterogeneous APs. You absolutely want SECURITY column to be identical, else devices won't roam.
> There's no way I'll remember it
I have history(1) and a symlink in a toolbox git repo.
> you likely can't Google it
"!g OSX airport command" works fine
> route
I found netstat -r is the most "Unix-portable" way of querying the routing table (Windows route is a peculiar beast anyway). route is deprecated on linux in favor of ip route.
Of course. The parent was referring to a situation when someone lacks internet access, due to a networking problem they are trying to fix, rendering them unable to use Google to find the command.
On OSX, just press option and click on your wifi-icon. You'll see the signal strength, channel, speed, encryption type etc of the AP you're connected to expanded in the dropdown menu.
. chooses 2.4 over 5
. not automatically connecting to my mobile wifi even though I use it all the time
. simply tries and fails to connect over and over and over .. I have to stop wifi and start it, and then it just works.
My 2013 Air has had three updates including firmware that mention wifi fixes but it still has problems.
OTOH, my Fedora 20 install has been behaving beautifully (though to be said in far less challenging environments)
Given that wifi has been constantly evolving since it started, it's not going to settle on chips any time soon. 802.11ac has just been released, prompting a new round of chips.
I wonder if we'll eventually get the kind of stability that we currently have with ethernet drivers... once the speeds are high enough that we stop upgrading, once the chips go into long-term production instead of changing every few years, once things settle down...