On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 10:36, George OLson wrote:

Yes, the timeouts are a problem, and I think it is a combination of an inconsistent internet connection,

Flaky internet can be a problem. The software installer is pretty reliant on having the online repositories configured and available. If you want to just use your installation DVD, and not always use the remote/online repositories: 1. Open the YaST Software Manager 2. Click on Configuration > Repositories 3. Here you will see a list of configured repositories. You can disable the ones you don't need every day by selecting a repository, and removing the X next to Enabled (lower left of the window). (there are several other ways to do this, but this is a simple way to start, using just the graphical interface) As long as you leave the DVD repository enabled, and have the DVD in your drive (or mounted) you can install direct from the DVD. If you want to re-enable any repositories you previously had configured, you just got through the same steps, but this time click to put an X next to Enabled for each repository. If you want to add more repositories once you get your internet sorted out... go to YaST > Software > Software Repositories. Then, in the menu: Configured Software Repositories > Repositories.... Then click Add > Community Repositories, and select the ones you're interested in... for example Packman is a very popular repository.

and maybe not having exactly the right driver for my ethernet connection?

That's usually pretty black and white... it usually either works, or it doesn't work. You don't often get a case where it sort of works. The autodetect on install usually gets it right without any user intervention.

Sometimes I know it is just the internet, like in the evening, when the whole city here bogs down the bandwidth of the local service. The only reason I think there might be a problem with my ethernet driver also is that when I unplug my cat5 cable and plug it into the plug on my windows laptop, web pages on chrome and firefox "seem" to load faster. I have measured it once or twice going to cnn.com, and I get about a 5-10 second difference, I think. But I realize that is not necessarily a good scientific means of testing, so I am kind of wondering how I would check that.

To start with, do you know what ethernet card you have? You can check that... mmm.. in YaST too if you want (again, there are several ways to do this, but this method is a way for you to get used to YaST and learn where you can go poking around): 1. Open the main YaST Control Center 2. Click Network Devices > Network Settings 3. If you get an warning message about the Network being controlled by the Network Manager, just click OK, you're not going to change anything.. you're just looking at the details. 4. Click the Overview tab, and the details of your ethernet card should be shown in the bottom half of the window. For example, mine says, "RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller" C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

George OLson wrote:

...

...

Sometimes I know it is just the internet, like in the evening, when the whole city here bogs down the bandwidth of the local service. The only reason I think there might be a problem with my ethernet driver also is that when I unplug my cat5 cable and plug it into the plug on my windows laptop, web pages on chrome and firefox "seem" to load faster. I have measured it once or twice going to cnn.com, and I get about a 5-10 second difference, I think. But I realize that is not necessarily a good scientific means of testing, so I am kind of wondering how I would check that.

To start with, do you know what ethernet card you have? You can check that... mmm.. in YaST too if you want (again, there are several ways to do this, but this method is a way for you to get used to YaST and learn where you can go poking around):

1. Open the main YaST Control Center 2. Click Network Devices> Network Settings 3. If you get an warning message about the Network being controlled by the Network Manager, just click OK, you're not going to change anything.. you're just looking at the details. 4. Click the Overview tab, and the details of your ethernet card should be shown in the bottom half of the window. For example, mine says, "RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller"

C.

Ok, I looked at the overview in YaST, bottom screen for my ethernet card, and here is what it says:

MCP61 Ethernet MAC : 48:5b:39:f3:76:92 BusID : 0000:00:07.0

Device Name: eth0 Started automatically at boot IP address assigned using DHCP

That seems like a generic name, doesn't it? Or is it actually the brand name of my NIC?

It's an nVidia MCP61 card. -- Tony Alfrey tonyalfrey@earthlink.net "I'd Rather Be Sailing" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:06:40 +0530, George OLson wrote:

...

Yes, the timeouts are a problem, and I think it is a combination of an inconsistent internet connection, and maybe not having exactly the right driver for my ethernet connection? Sometimes I know it is just the internet, like in the evening, when the whole city here bogs down the bandwidth of the local service. The only reason I think there might be a problem with my ethernet driver also is that when I unplug my cat5 cable and plug it into the plug on my windows laptop, web pages on chrome and firefox "seem" to load faster. I have measured it once or twice going to cnn.com, and I get about a 5-10 second difference, I think. But I realize that is not necessarily a good scientific means of testing, so I am kind of wondering how I would check that.

where are you living? doesn't sound like US or europe. i'm living in rural india and have similar problems from time to time. if it gets really bad i have to download the necessary rpm's from the appropriate repositories with wget, kget, or some other download utility that can, after disconnection, start downloading where the process was interrupted, so that big files don't have to start all over again. Yes, you are right! I am in Manila, the Philippines.

you can still use yast or zypper to figure out which packages you need, dependencies & all, but go to the repository with a browser and download the rpm's manually. (you find the repo. addresses in yast, or with "zypper lr -d".) Ok, I went to the opensuse update repository (to start off) with my browser, and there was a link to a directory there called "repodata", and on that directory there is a list of files. What do I do from here? Do I save this this html page to a local directory and add that local

On 08/22/2011 08:42 PM, phanisvara das wrote: directory to my list of configured repositories? Or do I click on each individual file and download it? They are mostly files with the extension .gz on them, though some have .asc or .key

re. difference in browser speed, that may depend on if or when these pages have been opened already in that particular browser. they all have their own caches where images, animations, etc., are stored for a while, leading to websites opening faster.

if your network adapter doesn't work properly, you can probably see a lot of errors, dropped packages, and overrun incidents if you type "ifconfig" at a root terminal.

another thing to consider is the "MTU" value of your network connection. particularly older network hardware (on the ISP side) can't handle network packages that are too large, so leaving your network at the default value (1500) may lead to lousy connection, and some sites not being available at all. in my case, i have to set a value of MTU=1452, otherwise i suffer from these symptoms. (you can set that wherever you configure your network: yast, networkmanager, or the config. files under /etc/sysconfig/network.)

Couldn't figure out where to set that. How do I determine what is managing my network? That is one thing that a friend set up for me, and he is not here now. Thanks George -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org