On 21/01/11 19:14, sc wrote:
On Friday 21 January 2011 05:50:00 Bob Williams wrote:
On Wednesday 19 Jan 2011 23:23:58 sc wrote:
[...]
since the install his downloads have been as slow as glaciers move, and all video streaming is herky-jerky as the video struggles to keep up with the program -- he cannot watch youtube or hulu, two of his favorite things, the pauses are so frequent and aggravating
i have looked at every network settings screen i can find and have been unable to re-find that "fast connection, fast computer" setting so i can dial it back and see if that fixes the issue
I don't think such a setting exists anywhere in the openSUSE installer, so I'm confused about this bit.
But the problem you are describing *may* actually not be a network issue, unlikely given the evidence you give later, but it's worth checking for anyway. If you are trying to watch YouTube and Hulu, remember that Adobe's Flash implementation on Linux is rubbish. If the machine is marginal performance-wise - it was just about able to play the videos OK under windows - it will never be able to cope under Flash on Linux. The video will stutter, it will get much worse full-screen, and your machine will generally be unresponsive when trying to play flash videos - and it gets worse the higher resolution the video, independent of internet connection speed. Try an actual separate "broadband speed test" to quantify the problem, you can find them all over the net, find one that doesn't rely on super-complicated flash or java (if your machine is underpowered/has flash issues, that may cause further spurious results). Or just download a big file from somewhere nearby that you know has a good connection. You could try torrenting one of the openSUSE or Ubuntu discs, that should max out your connection if you let it (unless your ISP throttles bittorrent traffic). If you do find that it is a performance issue, try: not watching videos in flash whenever possible - use html5, use flvstreamer + vlc, whatever ensure the proprietary video drivers for your video card are actually working (nvidia/ati)
i am hoping it won't be necessary to re-install suse in order to get to that setting again, as i've already added restricted formats and the nvidia driver (both of which took over an hour with his crippled connection)
Crippled connection? Could that be the answer?
most likely, yes -- we are in this boat because his modem and harddrive got damaged from a power spike -- they are both replaced now and leading us to wonder if something else got hit, like maybe the nic card
Have a look at more detailed info from /sbin/ifconfig -v eth0 and /sbin/ethtool eth0 (assuming your card is eth0 ofc) and see if you identify anything odd (like a 10mpbs ethernet connection where you expect 100mpbs) If you've got the time / spare computers set up an internal ethernet network and do some file copying to test the performance of the NIC independent of your internet connection speed.
the phone company sent a guy to his house who ran tests, hooked his notebook up to the same modem, and it worked fine, so we know it's either the hardware or the OS -- my fear being if we let him spend the $$ for a windows license and install that he'll still have a crippled connection
i just wish i could prove it isn't the OS without replacing it to do so
Try it with various LiveCD, that should prove your point. Though if it does happen to be a performance problem as I say above, it could be even worse on a LiveCD. Regards, Tejas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org