I have a weird issue with my wireless after a fresh install of 9.10. I've tested this wireless with 9.04 using both ndiswrapper and the included kernel drivers, as well as with compiled upstream drivers from wireless.kernel.org.

The problem doesn't occur that I've noticed in 9.04 but only in 9.10.

Here's the output for the physical device and driver in 9.10.

lsusb
Code:
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:8189 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps Network Adapter
lsmod
Code:
rtl8187                50624  0
mac80211              181236  1 rtl8187
led_class               4096  1 rtl8187
eeprom_93cx6            1916  1 rtl8187
cfg80211               93052  2 rtl8187,mac80211
Now for the issue. The link comes up just fine using WPA2 in both Network Manager and WICD. But the bit rate is reported at anywhere from 1M to 12M. Setting the bit rate to 54M, for example, via sudo iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M doesn't disconnect the wireless, but IP connectivity drops. I started a ping to my gateway address and set bit rate to 54M - pings time out. Set the bit rate to 11M via sudo iwconfig wlan0 rate 11M and pings resume immediately even though no change in wireless connection status is reported via iwconfig. If I set the bit rate to 54M prior to connecting the wireless, it simply doesn't connect because it's can't pull an IP address.

The reason why I put the word "bug" in the title is two tidbits that I found in the iwlist and iwconfig output. Signal strength according to both Network Manager and WICD is 100%, but check the red text:

iwlist scanning
Code:
wlan0     Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:13:49:89:61:67
                    Channel:11
                    Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
                    Quality=70/70  Signal level=-23 dBm  
                    Encryption key:on
                    ESSID:"parkernet"
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                              9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                    Bit Rates:24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Mode:Master
                    Extra:tsf=000000040253119b
                    Extra: Last beacon: 104400ms ago
                    IE: Unknown: 00097061726B65726E6574
                    IE: Unknown: 010882848B960C121824
                    IE: Unknown: 03010B
                    IE: Unknown: 2A0100
                    IE: Unknown: 32043048606C
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : CCMP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: Unknown: DD0700E04C01020300
iwconfig
Code:
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"parkernet"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:13:49:89:61:67  
          Bit Rate=11 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm  
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=70/70  Signal level=-17 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0
I booted Xubuntu 9.04 LiveCD and checked it there - link quality is 70/100 out of the box.

So it appears to me that my connection is suffering a performance loss due to link quality but not the ACTUAL link quality, but because the OS thinks the MAXIMUM link quality availlable is 70.