The Alfa AWUS036H, based on the Realtek 8187 chipset, is a really nice unit, but it tends to have a few quirks on Ubuntu. Here’s how I got mine working.

First make sure that you have the rtl8187 driver installed and loaded by running (do NOT plug your Alfa in yet, if you already have it plugged in, unplug it, disable any existing networking equipment, restart the wireless by right clicking on the network manager and unchecking “Wireless”, then recheck it)
Code:

sudo modprobe rtl8187

Now plug your Alfa in. You should see that the Network Manager identifies the dongle as a “Realtek RTL8187″. Go ahead and associate with a network if you can.

Now I was using the Alfa with an 8dBi antenna. You do the math to realize how much power that is, and you’re probably getting a bunch of reflections and echos. We need to turn the power down.

Code:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 txpower 50mW

Where wlan0 is the name of your dongle.

I also had an issue where the dongle was identifying the signal strength as much lower than it actually was, so it set my bit rate really low (like 1Mb/s)

To fix this, run
Code:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 rate auto

And it should read 54 Mb/s when you do another iwconfig

Now you need to reassociate to the network. You do this by going to your network manager and right clicking on the network you’ve already associated to.

After doing this my networking was screaming fast. Also continued to work after reboot, but the power went back up. I left it alone and things seemed stable. Held a stable ping over 2000 sequences with around 1% packet loss.

Hope this helps.

e17 is a rocking WM. Its lightweight and has all kinds of crazy cool stuff. Unfortunately there aren’t any stable releases and binaries tend to be hard to come by.

I wanted to slap e17 on my laptop which is running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, and there exist scripts like easy_e17 to simplify the process but I found it just complicated and convoluted things. So, I just opted to do it manually.

The e17 User’s Guide is actually the best starting place.

From there its just compile and follow instructions. Also you’ll need to create a way to start e17 when your PC boots. I already had GDM installed and working so I just did the GDM Install (for Intrepid the path is /usr/share/xsessions). You’ll need the enlightenment.desktop file which, if you installed to the default location, is in /usr/local/share/xsessions. Just copy that file into the /usr/share/xsessions folder then log out. Hit the Sessions button at the login window and select Enlightenment. Should be good to go.

Needless to mention, after you run the autoconf script, you can change your CFLAGS in the Makefile. DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH USING GCC CFLAGS. If you are familiar, I also assume you know where to get your CFLAGS, if not, the usual sources have them.

Again, don’t edit your CFLAGS if you don’t know what this does or how to use it. e17 will not run or might have adverse effects on your system if you specify incorrect CFLAGS.

I take no reponsibility for your install.

e17 is lightening fast and it works great too. If you have 2-3 hours then I recommend this (you can probably do it a lot faster but this is a pretty good time to set aside, just for playing with it if nothing else).

Keep in mind that e17 is also technically experimental software, and that tons of work is always being done on it. You can repeat this build and install process however often you want.

Excerpt from a Slashdot convo over at http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/11/007216

Exactly why is F/OSS better?

It’s subject to peer review. Some of the best programmers in the world have access to, and readily submit, code for F/OSS projects (not to say that EVERY F/OSS project is superior mind you).

Look at why hackers use it. Aside from their ability to heavily modify their system, they’re also extremely paranoid. I know plenty of hackers that contribute code and readily fix problems in F/OSS code because of their own paranoia.

Look at why the DoD and NSA use it. Its laid out like an OS should. ACLs, chrooting, SELinux, all of these help make it much easier to protect their own systems.

Want a really good blast at Microsoft? OpenBSD, its been around since 1994, there have only ever been 2 exploits off of the default config, and one of them was for a legacy version. Heck OpenBSD + pf is what the Defcon guys use.

And quite damn honestly, code that’s open source has met the firing squad. Hackers CAN see the code and compile it themselves, making it EASIER to find exploits, but yet Linux is regarded as far more secure just makes me think about how secure Linux REALLY is in comparison to NT. If you could place the NT Source code in the hands of someone competent I’m sure it would be hell for M$ (just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than MS08-067).