iwconfig -- wishlist -- report channel number

[Warren Hill]

This is more of a wishlist than a bug

On iwconfig it would be usefull to show the channel number for example:

$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:"1gid46vaylveagu59b3ks232h"
          Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz (Ch:6) Access Point: F8:D1:11:70:53:4E
          Bit Rate=150 Mb/s Tx-Power=16 dBm
          Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=69/70 Signal level=-41 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:30 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

Rationale: End users set channel numbers not frequencies on their access points. So it makes sense for this to be displayed either instead of of as well as the frequency.

Say for example ypu have Wifi covering a wide area with multiple APs of differnt channels. It is easier for user to see which AP they are connected to. It's possible to find channel nuber from frequeny but channel number more user frendly

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: wireless-tools 30~pre9-5ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-31.50-generic-pae 3.2.28
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-31-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu13
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Oct 8 07:18:32 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120817.3)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: wireless-tools
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Setting as Triaged / Wishlist.

The best would be to file this upstream with the authors of wireless-tools.

As a workaround, look at the output of "iw dev <iface> scan"; which includes both the frequency and the channel number.