On Fri, Jan 01, 2021 at 02:13:43PM +0000, Björn Gohla wrote: > > [...] > >> I just want to show the network activity in my desktop status line. > > > > Understood, fair enough. > > The chosen Tx rate is not a very reliable indicator of actual throughput > > but it can serve as a wifi link quality indicator to some extent. > > >From ifconfig.c I gather that > > (nr->nr_rates[nr->nr_nrates - 1] & IEEE80211_RATE_VAL) / 2 > > is the current nominal rate in Mb/s, is that correct? > > Curiously, what I observe with the RTL8192EU is that after associating, > that value starts at 1 and as transmissions are made, moves to 54 in > increasing steps, and then stays there. I guess that corroborates your > point about incorrect information being returned by the device.
That seems fine. The driver is adjusting the Tx rate up from 1 mbit to 54 mbit and then stays there since the Tx retry count is low enough even at 54 mbit. On devices which don't report anything you'd *always* see 54.