# Poor performance of RT3070 and RT2870 drivers



## mililani (Mar 15, 2011)

Folks,

After weeks of testing and benchmarking, I've concluded that the RT3070 and 2870 drivers for FreeBSD 8 suck compared to comparable Windows drivers.  It's almost a joke how bad the FreeBSD drivers are.  Even with the antennae closer to the source, I get much better performance with Windows from a distance away.  I don't understand what is going on here, but it pains me to switch back to Windows.  

I'm wondering.  Are the Mac OS X drivers installable on a FreeBSD build?  Maybe I could try out the RT3070 driver for Ma OS X on FreeBSD.


----------



## davidgurvich (Mar 15, 2011)

I get the same issue with all sorts of different wireless cards when comparing with the same equipment running linux.  Perhaps it's not just the drivers.  I consistently get better and faster connections using linux or openbsd or pretty much any other os.  The only caveat is the hardware support.

Pick a card that is supported on freebsd and any other system.  Are there any wireless cards that work almost as well on freebsd as other systems?  I'm really curious if it's just my bad luck.


----------



## SirDice (Mar 15, 2011)

mililani said:
			
		

> I'm wondering.  Are the Mac OS X drivers installable on a FreeBSD build?


No.


----------



## mililani (Mar 15, 2011)

davidgurvich said:
			
		

> I get the same issue with all sorts of different wireless cards when comparing with the same equipment running linux.  Perhaps it's not just the drivers.  I consistently get better and faster connections using linux or openbsd or pretty much any other os.  The only caveat is the hardware support.
> 
> Pick a card that is supported on freebsd and any other system.  Are there any wireless cards that work almost as well on freebsd as other systems?  I'm really curious if it's just my bad luck.



That's interesting to hear.  I've never heard of OpenBSD until now.  Although, I am fairly new to BSD and have mostly used AIX and Linux before.  I should try it out sometime.  

I should add some more context, I have been using PfSense 2.0 which is built on FreeBSD.  The driver support is completely based on FreeBSD 8.1.  I would like to switch to Linux, if I could be assured that the driver support for those chipsets performs as well as Windows.  However, I just don't have enough time to waste testing that out.  It was a pain in the butt to set up and configure PfSense on my little router box; doing that with Linux and testing out the drivers would be a pretty time consuming activity.

Well, looks like I might have to install Windows XP embedded.  That sucks.


----------

