>>>1. The hostname 'piratebox.lan' - Android really doesn't like it at all. My tablet wouldn't even consider it a valid name. I changed a few things to go by IP instead, and it worked.
Did you try to use a different hostname? Can you confirm that dnsmasq is working correctly?
>>>> 2. I'm using rt5370 USB adaptor and hostapd. It works. It's stable. It's also slow: Of my two cards, one doesn't want to go over 5.5Mb/s connection and the other will sometimes go higher, but doesn't seem to actually transfer data any faster. I'm ordering some alternatives to try off ebay, after a whole day of fiddling with hostapd.conf settings proved fruitless.
I believe that hostapd is not the problematic performance point... hostapd is only announcing the SSID .. I think that the most critical part is the driver & chipset of your wifi card.
>>>> 3. I put together a little program that randomises the wireless interface MAC address before hostapd starts. Sneaky. As some of the uses for pirateboxes may involve some covert operation, it seems a good idea: It'd make it harder to track which events a given device pops up at, and it makes pinning ownership on someone harder too.
What do you want to achieve.. can you exclude that your mac changer does not cause the transfer-speed problems?
>>> 4. The webpage and chat function seem a little script-heavy. I'm not sure what I can do about that, but I intend to have a go.
We know, that the webpage is not the nicest one. What do you mean with "script-heavy"? What do you want to change?
What don't you like (beside the design)?
Matthias
Did you try to use a different hostname? Can you confirm that dnsmasq is working correctly?
>>>> 2. I'm using rt5370 USB adaptor and hostapd. It works. It's stable. It's also slow: Of my two cards, one doesn't want to go over 5.5Mb/s connection and the other will sometimes go higher, but doesn't seem to actually transfer data any faster. I'm ordering some alternatives to try off ebay, after a whole day of fiddling with hostapd.conf settings proved fruitless.
I believe that hostapd is not the problematic performance point... hostapd is only announcing the SSID .. I think that the most critical part is the driver & chipset of your wifi card.
>>>> 3. I put together a little program that randomises the wireless interface MAC address before hostapd starts. Sneaky. As some of the uses for pirateboxes may involve some covert operation, it seems a good idea: It'd make it harder to track which events a given device pops up at, and it makes pinning ownership on someone harder too.
What do you want to achieve.. can you exclude that your mac changer does not cause the transfer-speed problems?
>>> 4. The webpage and chat function seem a little script-heavy. I'm not sure what I can do about that, but I intend to have a go.
We know, that the webpage is not the nicest one. What do you mean with "script-heavy"? What do you want to change?
What don't you like (beside the design)?
Matthias