Internet connection issue

[Stephen Kuhn]

On Tue, 2011-05-31 at 15:43 -0500, Alex C wrote:
> Thanks for the help.
> 
> So is there anyway for me to make LInux do some sort of background
> load balancing? Maybe a setting or something? Granted, I don't fully
> understand how that works so I may be asking for the impossible. I
> guess what I'm asking is if there is any possible way to make this
> work a little better so I can download updates etc...without crippling
> the connection for everyone else in the house. Going full Linux isn't
> an option as I'm the only one with any sort of interest or desire to
> run Linux.

"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats
for life".

I can only point you in the direction to start researching; and only
that.

So, your directives are (so far)
* Tweak your NIC settings
* Check out tweaking the /etc/sysctl.conf
* Check the other workstations for their settings
* Make sure your router's settings are absolutely correct (and quite
possibly, use DNS settings on the router that are absolutely concrete)
* Physical load balance (plug a hub into the router, and then all the
workstations into the HUB and not the ROUTER.)
* Test.

Routers are not smart - far from it. They will answer a request that has
priority. Therefore, if other workstations are not requesting priority,
your connection gets the priority. Actually quite simple if you think
about it. Therefore, using a hub behind the router "forces" a physical
balance on the network throughput. That SHOULD resolve the balance
issue; however, a single connection is limited. I have a 2mbps
connection. You can only break that down SO far, giving even streams to
each request.


-- 
yankdownunder
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Veni, Vidi, volo in domum redire.
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I run linux, now go STFU.