Best way to check wireless speed on RPi2

[hughparker1]

i have been trying to check speed on a couple of wireless adapters to see which one is best. Someone suggested I should connect to the RPi2 using PuTTY and run the following command.....

Code:

wget --output-document=/dev/null http://speedtest.wdc01.softlayer.com/downloads/test500.zip

Initially this did give me some results that I could compare against each wireless adapter, but then the internet speed kept stalling and the test took ages to run so I had to stop the test. Not sure if it's my internet speed that is at fault or if the script is causing the test to fail or my ISP is throttling my speed.

So I was wondering if there was another way to check internet speed. I did see this link....

Measuring Internet Speed In Python Using Speedtest-cli
http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2015/03...dtest-cli/

but I couldn't get the first text command line to run....

Code:

git clone https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli.git

got error message...

Code:

-sh: git: not found

Is there something I'm doing wrong? I don't have a lot of experience using the terminal but I'm willing to learn. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: I also tried different instructions to install speedtest-cli on this lnk.....

http://xmodulo.com/check-internet-speed-...linux.html
.... but I got error message....

Code:

OpenELEC:~ # wget https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py
wget: not an http or ftp url: https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py
OpenELEC:~ #

I was able to install speedtest-cli using this method successfully on my Xubuntu laptop without any trouble, but can't seem to install it on my RPi2

[chewitt]

I propose two counter-methodologies:

a) pick the largest rip in your collection and play it over the chosen device. If it is fast enough, it is fast enough. Fastest is not relevant.
b) pick the device that uses the ath9k driver and throw the ones using realtek or broadcom chips .. life will be easier and more reliable.
c) run an ethernet cable and avoid the many foibles of wireless altogether, you won't regret it.

[hughparker1]

I propose two counter-methodologies:

a) pick the largest rip in your collection and play it over the chosen device. If it is fast enough, it is fast enough. Fastest is not relevant.
b) pick the device that uses the ath9k driver and throw the ones using realtek or broadcom chips .. life will be easier and more reliable.
c) run an ethernet cable and avoid the many foibles of wireless altogether, you won't regret it.

thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately I can't use an ethernet cable but just had a look at the adapters I have and ran command lsusb to find out the driver and the results are ....

Code:

The PiHut USB Wi-Fi Adapter for Rasp Pi 802.11n 150Mbps = Ralink Technology, Corp. RT5370

Edimax EW-7811UN 150Mbps Wireless USB Adapter = Edimax Tech EW-7811Un 802.11n [Realtek RTL8188CUS]

ThePiHut Wi-Fi Module with Antenna for Raspberry Pi = Realtek Semi Corp. RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN

Looks like none are using ath9k driver.

Can you suggest any good USB adapters that use ath9k driver ? I need to buy two new wireless adapters anyway for a couple of new RPi2 builds and i would prefer to get the best quality going forward.

Thanks again for your help.

[chewitt]

We have a fairly low opinion of Realtek drivers and I personally refuse to recommend any specific brand/model because vendors frequently change the chipset internals between v1 and v2 or v3 of a device so something that worked great frequently turns out to be bad once a newer version comes out. The ralink device you have uses an in-kernel driver which is likely to be more reliable than the realtek ones, although since all of them are single channel (150Mb/s) devices you won't see blistering throughput from any of them

[hughparker1]

We have a fairly low opinion of Realtek drivers and I personally refuse to recommend any specific brand/model because vendors frequently change the chipset internals between v1 and v2 or v3 of a device so something that worked great frequently turns out to be bad once a newer version comes out. The ralink device you have uses an in-kernel driver which is likely to be more reliable than the realtek ones, although since all of them are single channel (150Mb/s) devices you won't see blistering throughput from any of them

Thanks again for taking the time to explain a bit more about wi-fi adapters. I have only ever used 150Mb/s adapters in the past, but have wondered if 300Mb/s adapters would be any better. I suppose it depends on the chipset as you said. Would it be worth while trying one as long as the chipset was supported by the linux kernel?

one last question, do you think it is possible to measure internet speed in python using Speedtest-cli as mentioned earlier?

I managed to install this ok on my Xubuntu os laptop, and it works very well, but I got an error message when trying to run the first command in OpenELEC
here is the link I used for instructions ....
http://xmodulo.com/check-internet-speed-...linux.html

I got this error message ....

Code:

OpenELEC:~ # wget https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py
wget: not an http or ftp url: https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py
OpenELEC:~ #

[chewitt]

Dual-channel 300Mb/s cards (or more) have the potential to be better, but stick to devices with in-kernel drivers as they tend to be more feature complete and better written - the kernel team enforces a level of better discipline on the code.

The command works for me on a Generic build box and we use busybox wget which should have ssl support. The only reason I can think of for something not to work would be mismatched kernel.img and SYSTEM files (e.g. one updated, one didn't) but then I'd expect to see greater breakage in the OS. Try using "curl -O https://blah" as the command.

[hughparker1]

Dual-channel 300Mb/s cards (or more) have the potential to be better, but stick to devices with in-kernel drivers as they tend to be more feature complete and better written - the kernel team enforces a level of better discipline on the code.

The command works for me on a Generic build box and we use busybox wget which should have ssl support. The only reason I can think of for something not to work would be mismatched kernel.img and SYSTEM files (e.g. one updated, one didn't) but then I'd expect to see greater breakage in the OS. Try using "curl -O https://blah" as the command.

thanks for the reply,
this is the four commands I am trying to run...

Code:

$ wget https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py
$ chmod a+rx speedtest_cli.py
$ sudo mv speedtest_cli.py /usr/local/bin/speedtest-cli
$ sudo chown root:root /usr/local/bin/speedtest-cli

I changed the first command to curl -O as you suggested
and the first two commands seemed to go ok... can't really tell, but no errors reported

Code:

$ curl -O https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py

$ chmod a+rx speedtest_cli.py

the third command I left out sudo as I am root

Code:

$ mv speedtest_cli.py /usr/local/bin/speedtest-cli

but I get message .....

Code:

OpenELEC: # mv speedtest_cli.py /usr/local/bin/speedtest-cli
mv: can't rename 'speedtest_cly.py': No such file or directory

I thought maybe the previous command didn't download anything but when I enter "ls" I can see the file...

Code:

OpenELEC: # ls
lost+found music pictures screenshots speedtest_cly.py tvshows videos

any idea what is going wrong, I'm quite new to linux and not sure how to proceed.
EDIT: I just realised, is system complaining because there isn't a /usr/local/bin/ directory? if that is the case, where should I move the file to so I can execute it by entering...

Code:

$ speedtest-cli

in terminal window

[Bats]

Normally best way to check your wireless speed would be via a LAN source and not an Internet source. That means you should test downloading a file from a computer on your LAN network, preferably a cable-connected one. Testing downloading a file form the internet is not reliable enough to determine your wifi adapter speed.

That said, you can do a download test targeting a local windows share, or a local FTP server, or with a specialized bandwidth test tool like iperf (I would go with iperf, google it). Try something of the above, but remember, you will get far more reliable results if one of the testing peer devices is connected via cable (so it can be capable at least of 100Mbps from one end).

Try and post the results.

[hughparker1]

Normally best way to check your wireless speed would be via a LAN source and not an Internet source. That means you should test downloading a file from a computer on your LAN network, preferably a cable-connected one. Testing downloading a file form the internet is not reliable enough to determine your wifi adapter speed.

That said, you can do a download test targeting a local windows share, or a local FTP server, or with a specialized bandwidth test tool like iperf (I would go with iperf, google it). Try something of the above, but remember, you will get far more reliable results if one of the testing peer devices is connected via cable (so it can be capable at least of 100Mbps from one end).

Try and post the results.

Hi, thanks for feedback on testing my network speed. I found the software iperf and installed it ok.

I followed the steps detailed here....
http://www.slashroot.in/iperf-how-test-n...ebandwidth

I initially used a windows machine as server so downloaded the iperf.exe file and installed it ok but I got connect failed message ...

Code:

$ iperf -c 192.168.1.10
connect failed: Connection timed out
$

192.168.1.10 is ip address of windows server
I suspect I am not getting through to the server but can't figure out why. i tried turning off Windows firewall and repeated the test but got same result.

So decided to use my old linux laptop as server (with wired connection to router) and my other laptop with wi-fi adapter as client and it worked great. So pleased with the end result...

Code:

~ $ iperf -c 192.168.1.2
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.2, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.1.5 port 59731 connected with 192.168.1.2 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.1 sec 22.6 MBytes 18.8 Mbits/sec
~ $

So my next step is to try to install iperf on my Raspberry Pi2 to check out a couple of wireless adapters to see which one is best. I will update this post with results if i manage to get it installed (it was easy to install on laptop using synaptic manager) but not sure how I will get on with RPi2.

PS. also found this interesting article...
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/linux-a...-networks/

[hughparker1]

I'm back to update my progress, see below....

I used an old original Raspberry Pi with OpenELEC(Millhouse)-Version:devel-20151020213401-#1020- Build Kodi 16.0-ALPHA4 Git:182945b. I use this for testing purposes.

I checked on Google for best method to install iperf on Raspberry Pi with OpenELEC and found the following result...

https://raspberrypihtpc.wordpress.com/ho...the-setup/

The instructions were as follows...

Get the iperf arm binary by downloading the .deb file for the arm version of iperf from ...

http://packages.debian.org/sid/armel/iperf/download

Extract the deb, and grab the ‘iperf’ binary from usr > bin

the file I downloaded was "iperf_2.0.5+dfsg1-2+b1_armel.deb" and I extracted the file as instructed and copied it to my VERBATIM USB stick and inserted into the Pi.

I used PuTTY to connect to the Pi, user = root, password = openelec, and copy binary to .kodi/userdata/

I used following command to copy binary....

Code:

cp -avr /var/media/VERBATIM/iperf /storage/.kodi/userdata/

cd .kodi/userdata/ # can now see iperf file copied ok

The instructions then say test the connection using iperf: (ip address is 192.168.1.2)

Code:

~/.kodi/userdata/iperf -c 192.168.1.2

but unfortunately it didn't work, I got following message....

Code:

OpenELEC: # ~/.kodi/userdata/iperf -c 192.168.1.2
-sh: ~/storage/.kodi/userdata/iperf: Permission denied

I'm not sure how to get permission as I don't know a lot about linux command line. Or can I copy the file to a different directory to be able to run it?
If anyone can help me I would be grateful.
EDIT: I found how to set exec permissions for the binary with following command ...

Code:

cd .kodi/userdata/

chmod +x iperf

Then while still in .kodi/userdata/ directory....

Code:

iperf -c 192.168.1.2

I found I can only run it while in the userdata directory itself, because of message Permission denied, but here is the output ....

Code:

OpenELEC:~.kodi/userdata/ # iperf -c 192.168.1.2
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.1.2, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 43.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.1.10 port 45434 connected with 192.168.1.2 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 66.5 MBytes 55.6 Mbits/sec

... although the output looks to be in correct format, I find that normal command prompt is not displayed when it finished, so I can't run the same command again, I need to close PuTTY and open it again if I want to run the command again. Any idea what might be the cause?

I also noticed the results seem to be quite a bit higher than my earlier tests using my laptop....

Code:

[ 3] local 192.168.1.5 port 59731 connected with 192.168.1.2 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.1 sec 22.6 MBytes 18.8 Mbits/sec
~ $

55.6 Mbits/sec versus 18.8 Mbits/sec on the RPi ?