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I'm using Ubuntu 13.04 on a Dell E6410.

  1. Dell E6410 comes with a default Wifi adapter: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200.
  2. I additionally plugged in a realtek rtl8192cu adaptor

I can clearly see which adapter is under using from the right-top side of Ubuntu 13.04 ---- the network configuration icon.

However, I'm wondering, is there a way to show in the bash by using command line that:

  1. How many Wifi adaptors on my system for now? ifconfig only shows there are 2 wifi adaptors, and I can see wlan1 is under using, but which adapter corresponds to wlan1? and which adapter corresponds to wlan0?
  2. I can clearly see the MAC addresses of two Wifi adapters, but lsusb only shows the connected USB devices without showing their MAC address. And the default Wifi adapter coming with the laptop is not a USB device. lshw takes me such a long time to show clearly the MAC address for Centrino Advanced-N 6200 and the MAC address for realtek rtl8192cu.

So, I'm wondering, is there a simple but direct way to compare both Wifi devices?

2 Answers 2

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Taking the risk to totally redicule myself but : How about just unplug the usb-wifi and ifconfig to see which mac is left ? so u should know which is which.

u also may try iWconfig to get more specified nfo about ur adapters.

and finally, u may "ifconfig wlanX down" to disconnect one of the adapters and sort out which is leftover (-: (in the router eg, if acessible)

bst.regrds.me (-:

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Identify your network cards with lshw

sudo lshw -class network

You should get a result similar to this:

*-network
             description: Ethernet interface
             product: Ethernet Connection I217-V
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 19
             bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0
             logical name: eth0
             version: 04
             serial: bc:5f:f4:b0:b3:f9
             size: 1Gbit/s
             capacity: 1Gbit/s
             width: 32 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
             configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=2.1.4-k duplex=full firmware=0.13-4 ip=192.168.123.120 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=1Gbit/s
             resources: irq:46 memory:f3100000-f311ffff memory:f3139000-f3139fff ioport:f040(size=32)

Serial is the mac address. At this point you should know which device has which mac address.

With ifconfig (faster than lshw) you can now identify your devices by mac address (look for HWaddr field)

Of course you can always check the "Connection information" in the Network manager menu (the two arrows in the upper right corner of your desktop).

Once you have identified your network cards I'd suggest to use the Network manager to easily switch/identify from one another. In the "Edit connections..." menu you can create new connections per device and you are free to call each configuration with a custom name (eg: Realtek Home or Intel Work)

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