Odd Networking Issue: Windows vs Linux

Ok I am not sure if anyone can explain this issue easily but I am
curious to know because this is very strange to me in a way. Ok, we
have a network at my school, which is now constantly slow because of
major network problems and kids are constantly downloading things. Now
it's rare when downloading a file in Windows at least using Internet
Explorer sometimes to get over 20 sometimes over 10. But I noticed at
the same time using a Linux machine, using Debian's apt-get or wget,
the machine on the same exact network can pull in like at least 50 kb/s
with no problem. Oonce in a while it can grab over 100kb/s which no
other computer (all running Windows) has at all been able to achieve
lately. Only this Linux machine seems to do this. Any explainatoions?

On 24 Feb 2006 16:57:02 -0800, "RedPenguin" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Ok I am not sure if anyone can explain this issue easily but I am
>curious to know because this is very strange to me in a way. Ok, we
>have a network at my school, which is now constantly slow because of
>major network problems and kids are constantly downloading things. Now
>it's rare when downloading a file in Windows at least using Internet
>Explorer sometimes to get over 20 sometimes over 10. But I noticed at
>the same time using a Linux machine, using Debian's apt-get or wget,
>the machine on the same exact network can pull in like at least 50 kb/s
>with no problem. Oonce in a while it can grab over 100kb/s which no
>other computer (all running Windows) has at all been able to achieve
>lately. Only this Linux machine seems to do this. Any explainatoions?

http vs ftp? ftp far more reliable.

Besides, Internet is unix, msie is a clueless browser

Grant.
--
.... The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,
"Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"

RedPenguin wrote:
> Ok I am not sure if anyone can explain this issue easily but I am
> curious to know because this is very strange to me in a way. Ok, we
> have a network at my school, which is now constantly slow because of
> major network problems and kids are constantly downloading things. Now
> it's rare when downloading a file in Windows at least using Internet
> Explorer sometimes to get over 20 sometimes over 10. But I noticed at
> the same time using a Linux machine, using Debian's apt-get or wget,
> the machine on the same exact network can pull in like at least 50 kb/s
> with no problem. Oonce in a while it can grab over 100kb/s which no
> other computer (all running Windows) has at all been able to achieve
> lately. Only this Linux machine seems to do this. Any explainatoions?
>
software quality?

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

On 24 Feb 2006 16:57:02 -0800, RedPenguin wrote:
> Ok I am not sure if anyone can explain this issue easily but I am
> curious to know because this is very strange to me in a way. Ok, we
> have a network at my school, which is now constantly slow because of
> major network problems and kids are constantly downloading things. Now
> it's rare when downloading a file in Windows at least using Internet
> Explorer sometimes to get over 20 sometimes over 10. But I noticed at
> the same time using a Linux machine, using Debian's apt-get or wget,
> the machine on the same exact network can pull in like at least 50 kb/s
> with no problem. Oonce in a while it can grab over 100kb/s which no
> other computer (all running Windows) has at all been able to achieve
> lately. Only this Linux machine seems to do this. Any explainatoions?

Two things come to mind.
I think M$ reserves some bandwidth for it's self. There is a setting
somewhere to adjust it, but, I do not do windows.

Other could be the systems are infected and are burning bandwidth
hunting other systems to infect or they are sending out email spam.

Hmmm, now that I think back, maybe it is a packet/rx window size
problem, but it's been more then 3 years since I looked into that
stuff.

Rule our IE, load firefox from mozilla.com and use
http://www.broadbandreports.com/stest
to get a good benchmark.

Some of this I thought. But they will use both HTTP. It could also I
guess be the speed of the servers. If it's an edu, I would assume it
would be faster. But then on servers that are fast at home are actually
slower in school.

Also aren't switches made to even out how much it gives to every
machine? I notice two machines, one may get bytes per second while
another may get over 50kb/s. Shouldn't they both get like 25?

"RedPenguin" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) ps.com...
> Ok I am not sure if anyone can explain this issue easily but I am
> curious to know because this is very strange to me in a way. Ok, we
> have a network at my school, which is now constantly slow because of
> major network problems and kids are constantly downloading things. Now
> it's rare when downloading a file in Windows at least using Internet
> Explorer sometimes to get over 20 sometimes over 10. But I noticed at
> the same time using a Linux machine, using Debian's apt-get or wget,
> the machine on the same exact network can pull in like at least 50 kb/s
> with no problem. Oonce in a while it can grab over 100kb/s which no
> other computer (all running Windows) has at all been able to achieve
> lately. Only this Linux machine seems to do this. Any explainatoions?
>

So... look at the network with tcpdump, or ethereal, and
take a peek at the traffic on both the Windows and
Linux box.

Then fire up Spybot (on the Windows machines) and remove
all of the spyware that the students have put on the
Windows boxes.

Enjoy,
Postmaster

In comp.os.linux.networking RedPenguin <(E-Mail Removed)>:
> Ok I am not sure if anyone can explain this issue easily but I am
> curious to know because this is very strange to me in a way. Ok, we
> have a network at my school, which is now constantly slow because of
> major network problems and kids are constantly downloading things. Now
> it's rare when downloading a file in Windows at least using Internet
> Explorer sometimes to get over 20 sometimes over 10. But I noticed at
> the same time using a Linux machine, using Debian's apt-get or wget,
> the machine on the same exact network can pull in like at least 50 kb/s
> with no problem. Oonce in a while it can grab over 100kb/s which no
> other computer (all running Windows) has at all been able to achieve
> lately. Only this Linux machine seems to do this. Any explainatoions?

That's easy, not uncommon those doze boxes are full with
bug/spyware. Solution, put a Linux box as gateway between and
check 'tcpdump' and alike who's using up the bandwidth. Permanent
solution: Just install Debian on all of them and you'll have
solved this and many other further problems taking ages to
resolve in one go.

Good luck

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo (E-Mail Removed) | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 142: new guy cross-connected phone lines with ac
power bus.

RedPenguin wrote:
> Ok I am not sure if anyone can explain this issue easily but I am
> curious to know because this is very strange to me in a way. Ok, we
> have a network at my school, which is now constantly slow because of
> major network problems and kids are constantly downloading things. Now
> it's rare when downloading a file in Windows at least using Internet
> Explorer sometimes to get over 20 sometimes over 10. But I noticed at
> the same time using a Linux machine, using Debian's apt-get or wget,
> the machine on the same exact network can pull in like at least 50 kb/s
> with no problem. Oonce in a while it can grab over 100kb/s which no
> other computer (all running Windows) has at all been able to achieve
> lately. Only this Linux machine seems to do this. Any explainatoions?

Sounds like your win machines need tuning.

Have a look at these (adjust for your version(s) of Windows):
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&...ing+windows+xp

You'll probably want to script the new settings that work best after
testing/confirming their worth.

Also check for ad/spyware and lan networking (SMB) issues. Ie., what's
eating up the network stack and/or cpu processing on the win machines?

regards,
prg

PS Wouldn't this be better addressed to a Windows group? ;-)

"RedPenguin" <(E-Mail Removed)> said:
>Some of this I thought. But they will use both HTTP. It could also I
>guess be the speed of the servers. If it's an edu, I would assume it
>would be faster. But then on servers that are fast at home are actually
>slower in school.

Much depends on from where yuor school gets its connection, versus from
where you have your connection at home. Some edu servers are fast, some
are slow.

>Also aren't switches made to even out how much it gives to every
>machine? I notice two machines, one may get bytes per second while
>another may get over 50kb/s. Shouldn't they both get like 25?

Switches would be in the network "very close" to the machines - that is,
separated just by a length of cable (perhaps another set of switches
next to these); if the switch is of any quality, it'll easily handle
close to 100Mbit/s traffic simultaneously on each port. When (as seen
from th switch) there's ample free capacity, why should it penalize
a faster download just because there is simultaneously a slower one?

On a congested link, with all other conditions being equal, you could
see some round-robin behaviour. All others meaning bandwith&latency
of each remote server and of each local machine, and so on, but even
this wouldn't be much mandated by the switch, but more by the machines
at each end. Routers could force some speed-equalization.
--
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