Linux still surfs slower than Windows
Hi: I have two Suse 9.1 Linuxes and one Win2k on a LAN behind a Linksys WRT54G router connected to SBC/Yahoo DSL. The router gets a dynamic IP via DHCP, and connects via PPPoE. It also receives DNS server addresses. The LAN hosts have static IPs on subnet 192.168.1.0 and statically configured DNS server addresses set to the values shown by the router. These DNS addresses are always the same: 63.203.35.55 and 206.13.28.12 . The Windows host also has a static IP and manually configured DNS servers. Also, there is a Win2k VMware machine on each Linux box with bridged networking and static IP and DNS configurations. So a total of two Linux boxes, one real Win2k, and two virtual Win2k. The problem is simply that the Linux boxes using Mozilla or Konqueror web browsers, surf the web ridiculously slow. Typically 45 seconds to load a page like www.cnn.com, and 10-15 seconds to load simpler pages like www.google.com. The Win2k, both the real and virtual machines, all surf at instantaneous speed using either Mozilla or IE. I changed the Linux DNS server configurations to free servers: 205.166.226.38 and 69.67.108.10, which improved speed significantly. Now Linux surfs about 3-4 times slower than Windows on average for all web sites. A big improvement, but still unacceptable. Typical 6-8 second loads for www.cnn.com, vs. 2-3 seconds for Windows. I posted before "Terrible Web Surfing Speed" and will summarize the results of the suggestions and other attempts at fixing this: 1. The only suggestion which improved matters was to use in the file /etc/resolv.conf: options timeout:1 This improved the surfing speed using SBC/Yahoo DNS servers to about the same speed as using the free servers, still about 3-4 times slower than Win2k. This is the condition I am in at this time. 2. Switching to DHCP IP and DNS assignments for the LAN clients did not help. 3. Turning off IPv6 did not help. 4. Captain Dondo suggested: "Well, perhaps your router/ISP is issuing ICMP redirects and your linux box ain't set up to accept them? I don't know if Windows accepts redirects by default; it makes it easier for the user but opens up security holes.... Hmmm. Which way would Windows lean? As root, run this command: for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do echo 1 > $f; done Well I have all these already set to 1 so that can't be the problem:
for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do cat $f; done 1 1 1 1 1
5. Use the WRT54G as the DNS server. I tried this, and it works. Some performance is a little bit better than either the free servers or the options timeout:1, but still about 2 times slower than Windows. Hmm. Very close, but still disappointingly slower than Windows. It seems with the router as DNS, that initial loads of new pages are slow, but then loading again is very fast. Before, it was the same slow speed all the time. But Windows still manages twice the initial load speed for all pages. Any further suggestions how to improve things would be appreciated. Good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@sbcglobal.net SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5
One thing you haven't mentioned (as far as I can see) is the actual hardware specifications of the machines? ----------------------------------------------- Sent by freemail.servebeer.com Signup for your free 100mb Mail account today! Full pop3/smtp accounts available!! ----------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: Chris Carlen [mailto:crobc@sbcglobal.net] Sent: 19 February 2005 03:41 To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: [SLE] Linux still surfs slower than Windows Hi: I have two Suse 9.1 Linuxes and one Win2k on a LAN behind a Linksys WRT54G router connected to SBC/Yahoo DSL. The router gets a dynamic IP via DHCP, and connects via PPPoE. It also receives DNS server addresses. The LAN hosts have static IPs on subnet 192.168.1.0 and statically configured DNS server addresses set to the values shown by the router. These DNS addresses are always the same: 63.203.35.55 and 206.13.28.12 . The Windows host also has a static IP and manually configured DNS servers. Also, there is a Win2k VMware machine on each Linux box with bridged networking and static IP and DNS configurations. So a total of two Linux boxes, one real Win2k, and two virtual Win2k. The problem is simply that the Linux boxes using Mozilla or Konqueror web browsers, surf the web ridiculously slow. Typically 45 seconds to load a page like www.cnn.com, and 10-15 seconds to load simpler pages like www.google.com. The Win2k, both the real and virtual machines, all surf at instantaneous speed using either Mozilla or IE. I changed the Linux DNS server configurations to free servers: 205.166.226.38 and 69.67.108.10, which improved speed significantly. Now Linux surfs about 3-4 times slower than Windows on average for all web sites. A big improvement, but still unacceptable. Typical 6-8 second loads for www.cnn.com, vs. 2-3 seconds for Windows. I posted before "Terrible Web Surfing Speed" and will summarize the results of the suggestions and other attempts at fixing this: 1. The only suggestion which improved matters was to use in the file /etc/resolv.conf: options timeout:1 This improved the surfing speed using SBC/Yahoo DNS servers to about the same speed as using the free servers, still about 3-4 times slower than Win2k. This is the condition I am in at this time. 2. Switching to DHCP IP and DNS assignments for the LAN clients did not help. 3. Turning off IPv6 did not help. 4. Captain Dondo suggested: "Well, perhaps your router/ISP is issuing ICMP redirects and your linux box ain't set up to accept them? I don't know if Windows accepts redirects by default; it makes it easier for the user but opens up security holes.... Hmmm. Which way would Windows lean? As root, run this command: for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do echo 1 > $f; done Well I have all these already set to 1 so that can't be the problem:
for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do cat $f; done 1 1 1 1 1
5. Use the WRT54G as the DNS server. I tried this, and it works. Some performance is a little bit better than either the free servers or the options timeout:1, but still about 2 times slower than Windows. Hmm. Very close, but still disappointingly slower than Windows. It seems with the router as DNS, that initial loads of new pages are slow, but then loading again is very fast. Before, it was the same slow speed all the time. But Windows still manages twice the initial load speed for all pages. Any further suggestions how to improve things would be appreciated. Good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@sbcglobal.net SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5 -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
Does it take long to resolve the address to ip or is the
page loading slow?
Maybe you can try connecting to sites with their ip address
and see if it loads same speed as w2k than using www. If it
does then there must be something not right with dns?
Regards
On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 08:43:13 -0000
"Stephen Furlong"
One thing you haven't mentioned (as far as I can see) is the actual hardware specifications of the machines?
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-----Original Message----- From: Chris Carlen [mailto:crobc@sbcglobal.net] Sent: 19 February 2005 03:41 To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: [SLE] Linux still surfs slower than Windows
Hi:
I have two Suse 9.1 Linuxes and one Win2k on a LAN behind a Linksys WRT54G router connected to SBC/Yahoo DSL. The router gets a dynamic IP via DHCP, and connects via PPPoE. It also receives DNS server addresses. The LAN hosts have static IPs on subnet 192.168.1.0 and statically configured DNS server addresses set to the values shown by the router. These DNS addresses are always the same: 63.203.35.55 and 206.13.28.12 .
The Windows host also has a static IP and manually configured DNS servers. Also, there is a Win2k VMware machine on each Linux box with bridged networking and static IP and DNS configurations.
So a total of two Linux boxes, one real Win2k, and two virtual Win2k.
The problem is simply that the Linux boxes using Mozilla or Konqueror web browsers, surf the web ridiculously slow. Typically 45 seconds to load a page like www.cnn.com, and 10-15 seconds to load simpler pages like www.google.com.
The Win2k, both the real and virtual machines, all surf at instantaneous speed using either Mozilla or IE.
I changed the Linux DNS server configurations to free servers: 205.166.226.38 and 69.67.108.10, which improved speed significantly. Now Linux surfs about 3-4 times slower than Windows on average for all web sites. A big improvement, but still unacceptable. Typical 6-8 second loads for www.cnn.com, vs. 2-3 seconds for Windows.
I posted before "Terrible Web Surfing Speed" and will summarize the results of the suggestions and other attempts at fixing this:
1. The only suggestion which improved matters was to use in the file /etc/resolv.conf:
options timeout:1
This improved the surfing speed using SBC/Yahoo DNS servers to about the same speed as using the free servers, still about 3-4 times slower than Win2k. This is the condition I am in at this time.
2. Switching to DHCP IP and DNS assignments for the LAN clients did not help.
3. Turning off IPv6 did not help.
4. Captain Dondo suggested: "Well, perhaps your router/ISP is issuing ICMP redirects and your linux box ain't set up to accept them? I don't know if Windows accepts redirects by default; it makes it easier for the user but opens up security holes.... Hmmm. Which way would Windows lean? As root, run this command: for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do echo 1 > $f; done
Well I have all these already set to 1 so that can't be the problem:
for f in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/*/accept_redirects; do cat $f; done 1 1 1 1 1
5. Use the WRT54G as the DNS server. I tried this, and it works. Some performance is a little bit better than either the free servers or the options timeout:1, but still about 2 times slower than Windows.
Hmm.
Very close, but still disappointingly slower than Windows. It seems with the router as DNS, that initial loads of new pages are slow, but then loading again is very fast. Before, it was the same slow speed all the time. But Windows still manages twice the initial load speed for all pages.
Any further suggestions how to improve things would be appreciated.
Good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@sbcglobal.net SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
______________________________________________________________ http://www.webmail.co.za the South African FREE email service
it clown wrote:
Does it take long to resolve the address to ip or is the page loading slow?
Maybe you can try connecting to sites with their ip address and see if it loads same speed as w2k than using www. If it does then there must be something not right with dns?
All indications point to DNS. It's difficult to make comparisons between IP vs. hostname surfing, because many complex sites draw from several servers. My favorite benchmark is CNN. This site pauses for several second durations multiple times, with the browser saying: "Resolving host..." Good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@sbcglobal.net SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5
Chris, On Saturday 19 February 2005 12:09, Chris Carlen wrote:
...
All indications point to DNS. It's difficult to make comparisons between IP vs. hostname surfing, because many complex sites draw from several servers.
Use the "host" program to perform DNS lookups in isolation.
...
Randall Schulz
Stephen Furlong wrote:
One thing you haven't mentioned (as far as I can see) is the actual hardware specifications of the machines?
It doesn't matter. If anything, the Windows VMs should run slower than the native Linux OSes on the same machine. But they don't when talking about web surfing. Also, the real Win2k machine is the same machine as one of the two Linux boxes. That machine is dual boot. Oh, but anyway the machines are rather powerfull as web surfing machines go. The dual-boot is a 1.4GHz Athlon XP1600 with 512MB RAM, and a 2.4GHz Athlon64 3400+ with 1GB RAM (running Suse 9.1 32 bit version). Both have 100Mb LAN cards. I can get 11MB/s FTP speeds between the machines, so the LAN hardware is working super. Good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@sbcglobal.net SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5
Chris Carlen wrote: ...
The problem is simply that the Linux boxes using Mozilla or Konqueror web browsers, surf the web ridiculously slow. Typically 45 seconds to load a page like www.cnn.com, and 10-15 seconds to load simpler pages like www.google.com.
The Win2k, both the real and virtual machines, all surf at instantaneous speed using either Mozilla or IE.
Additional point: When I first set up to connect to SBC/Yahoo DSL, everything seemed fine and the web surfed at warp speed. Then suddenly one day things wound up like this. I do not allow automatic YOU updating, and performed no manual update. So I am deeply suspicious that SBC did something to their network, that now makes it not play well with Linux. What is different about the way Windows vs. Linux hosts perform DNS lookups? Good day! -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@sbcglobal.net SuSE 9.1 Linux 2.6.5
On Saturday 19 February 2005 12:12 pm, Chris Carlen wrote:
Additional point:
When I first set up to connect to SBC/Yahoo DSL, everything seemed fine and the web surfed at warp speed. Then suddenly one day things wound up like this.
I use SBC/Yahoo and their DNS servers are notorious for being slow, at least here in California. Sometimes they are lightening fast, other times I see host not founds on well known hosts, a refresh typically clears it. Scott -- POPFile, the OpenSource EMail Classifier http://popfile.sourceforge.net/ Linux 2.6.8-24.11-default x86_64
On Sat, 2005-02-19 at 12:12 -0800, Chris Carlen wrote:
Additional point:
When I first set up to connect to SBC/Yahoo DSL, everything seemed fine and the web surfed at warp speed. Then suddenly one day things wound up like this.
I do not allow automatic YOU updating, and performed no manual update.
So I am deeply suspicious that SBC did something to their network, that now makes it not play well with Linux.
What is different about the way Windows vs. Linux hosts perform DNS lookups?
Interesting thought. We use SBC/Yahoo DSL here too. They were somewhat uncooperative during our initial install when I told them we were using linux. I ran a test with one of our Windows systems (one admin insists on using Windows). I tested them both at:http://performance.toast.net/ The Linux system was almost 3 times faster. Of course it may be a bit biased because the Windows system may be infested with all kinds of malware. Nonetheless, it doesn't seem like an SBC issue. Regis Matejcik
The Saturday 2005-02-19 at 12:12 -0800, Chris Carlen wrote:
What is different about the way Windows vs. Linux hosts perform DNS lookups?
If you suspect DNS is slow, set up your own bind server as DNS cache. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
participants (7)
-
Carlos E. R. -
Chris Carlen -
it clown -
Randall R Schulz -
Regis Matejcik -
Scott Leighton -
Stephen Furlong