[GRLUG] wifi connection drops under Ubuntu

[John-Thomas Richards]

I bought an Acer Aspire One for my wife.  It came with Win7 Starter
Edition.  W7SE is a dog.  I installed Ubuntu (full, not Netbook Remix)
on it.  It is much snappier than Win7.  However, wifi does not work as
well under Ubuntu as it does under Win7.  Win7 shows signal strength
around 85% and Ubuntu (NetworkManager) shows it around 42%.  Googling
has revealed that these figures may not be accurate.  I am inclined to
trust them since Win7 never experiences loss of network connectivity
whereas Ubuntu experiences frequent drops.  I disabled power management
on the wifi card (thinking that perhaps Ubuntu is mistakenly reducing
the power to it in an effort to save power).  This does not eliminate
the loss of connectivity.  I am not sure what else to do, but no matter
what, I cannot tell my wife to just boot into Windows.  Any ideas?
-- 
john-thomas
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If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly
perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.
Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)