Arch Linux

Isomorphism

Member

Registered: 2008-04-29

Posts: 41

Slow Internet

Hi everyone,
I am a new Linux user and have recently installed Archlinux. I am using Archlinux in spite of the warning that it "is not for noobs", because its the only distro that works super fast on my 256 MB ram.

Now my problem is that I have dhcp internet connection at home and usually I used to get 30KBps download speeds. However in Arch I get only 6KBps(I am saying this based on the speed I get from d4x). Naturally there must be some problem with the settings. Now I have no idea how to investigate whether it is the net that itself is slow OR some settings that I have messed up.

Another problem is that if i use pacman to download and install large files like gnome and gnome-extra etc, pacman hangs halfway through(not exactly half...). Is it again related to the internet being slow?

Does anyone have any idea why these things are happening?

While I am at debugging these things I hope to learn some new things. So that I can use Arch effectively

EDIT: Its definitely a problem with settings, because pacman gives me 30kBps. Is it a problem with d4x
Thank you,
Isomorphism

Last edited by Isomorphism (2008-04-29 18:35:53)

fuscia

Member

Registered: 2008-04-21

Posts: 398

Re: Slow Internet

this might help a little - disabling IPv6

also, you might find using a light window manager instead of a giant DE like gnome, will save you some memory. using lighter apps, in general, will save your memory.

Isomorphism

Member

Registered: 2008-04-29

Posts: 41

Re: Slow Internet

Hi fuscia,

this might help a little - disabling IPv6

I will try that. Thank you.

also, you might find using a light window manager instead of a giant DE like gnome, will save you some memory. using lighter apps, in general, will save your memory.

Which light window manager do you suggest?

Thank you,
Isomorphism

Misbah

Member

Registered: 2008-02-27

Posts: 218

Re: Slow Internet

deleted

Last edited by Misbah (2012-02-14 05:02:25)

z0phi3l

Member

From: Waterbury CT

Registered: 2007-11-26

Posts: 278

Re: Slow Internet

I was having what I thought were DNS issues, but finally decided to disable IPv6, and all I have to say is WOW

That's been a small issue I was having that was more annoying than anything else.

Isomorphism

Member

Registered: 2008-04-29

Posts: 41

Re: Slow Internet

As a new linux user I doubt you would feel comfortable with a tiling WM or even just a WM. That's just my opinion, no insult intended. I'm a new user myself. XFCE is a relatively full featured whole desktop environment, and is lighter than gnome/kde.

Thank you, I have installed XFCE. My friend who installed Arch for me, asked me to use xfce in case RAM is not enough. But as of now there is no problem with KDE. Though I agree KDE is a tad sluggish in response.
I have not got used to the looks of xfce.If it is lighter and hence faster, then I have enough reason to try it out.
I will use it from today onwards and report my experience(or problems) here

If you do want to try something lighter, but maybe not as "all inclusive" or easily configurable, you can go for a *box environment, which is what I use, but it's not as easy (relative to xfce) to configure and isn't as inclusive when it comes to things like file managers and utilities, you'll have to add them on yourself. XFCE looks nice, is a complete desktop environment, and snappy as well. I'm sure others will give you advice/opinions also.

I want to try the *box environment. But I have no idea what it is:(
Could you please direct me to an installation guide of some sort?

EDIT: Many would suggest E17 as well as a DE on par with xfce in terms of feature completeness. It's a good alternative as well, although E17 to me still has a steeper learning curve (relative to xfce) and doesn't have the track record of xfce4.4. IMHO.

Installing Enlightenment

Thank you all,
Isomorphism

P.S: The download speed problem was due to d4x and not any settings
But thanks for IPv6 disabling trick

fuscia

Member

Registered: 2008-04-21

Posts: 398

Re: Slow Internet

Hi fuscia,

this might help a little - disabling IPv6

I will try that. Thank you.

also, you might find using a light window manager instead of a giant DE like gnome, will save you some memory. using lighter apps, in general, will save your memory.

Which light window manager do you suggest?

Thank you,
Isomorphism

i'm not sure you'll notice a huge difference with that IPv6 thing. for lightweight window managers, there are a ton of good ones. i used openbox forever. it's lightweight and very fast and really stable. the same could be said about fluxbox (i prefer editing the fluxbox menu to the openbox menu). albi's made some great themes for icewm, making icewm useable. it's fast, but until albi came along, it was fugly. there are also some great tiling wm's. xmonad, awesome, wmii and dwm are my favorite. most can be started by entering exec whateverthenameofthewmis in a .xinitrc file (you might need to create that). also, dumping your gdm, kdm, whateverdm is a good idea.

inXistant

Member

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2008-04-11

Posts: 51

Website

Re: Slow Internet

Hi isomorphism (what's the domain and the codomain of the iso anyway? ),

As a lightwight WM, I personnaly use awesome (the mouse is overrated ), try this before dwm as awesome is just based on dwm code re-writing and is much easier to customize...

Cheers!

---

Nothing is sacred

Isomorphism

Member

Registered: 2008-04-29

Posts: 41

Re: Slow Internet

Hi isomorphism (what's the domain and the codomain of the iso anyway? ),

As a lightwight WM, I personnaly use awesome (the mouse is overrated ), try this before dwm as awesome is just based on dwm code re-writing and is much easier to customize...

Cheers!

Hi inXistant,

Mostly I will be browsing(or downloading), running a videoplayer or amarok.While I am using awesome, and I look at my "htop", there is no much difference between KDEmod and awesome.A saving of 5MB RAM, thats all

Moreover I did not find any good tutorial for awesome. How did you learn to use awesome? And do you know any web material that explains how to use it? Neither their homepage nor Archwiki explains how to tweak it.... It just explains installing stuff

How do I get the "widgets" and how do I customize awesome?

Thank you,
Isomorphism

Last edited by Isomorphism (2008-05-03 08:13:44)

cubekid

Member

Registered: 2008-04-22

Posts: 34

Website

Re: Slow Internet

So as far as i know, awesome is still kinda new, and while the website has some stuff, there's no really comprehensive tutorial (or at least i haven't found one yet).

Unfortunately, the problem is that the .awesomerc syntax keeps changing, which is a bit of a problem.

To answer your question about the "widgets", i believe people use something called amazing

There are a few threads that are pretty good and have a lot of good info, though they may be a bit outdated:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=675292
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=689649

Also, often in the screenshots threads you'll find people who have really nice config files. Browse through the April and May Screenshots threads, there are a bunch of good configs there.

inXistant

Member

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2008-04-11

Posts: 51

Website

Re: Slow Internet

Mostly I will be browsing(or downloading), running a videoplayer or amarok.While I am using awesome, and I look at my "htop", there is no much difference between KDEmod and awesome.A saving of 5MB RAM, thats all

Not more? I'm surprised... Anyway, I like tiling wm's to work and I (personally) prefer Awesome to the others this is why I chose it; I have too much RAM in fact...

Moreover I did not find any good tutorial for awesome. How did you learn to use awesome? And do you know any web material that explains how to use it? Neither their homepage nor Archwiki explains how to tweak it.... It just explains installing stuff

I learned it using

 $ man awesome

It explains all the default mouse / key bindings.

How do I get the "widgets" and how do I customize awesome?

I don't know about amazing; 'never used it. For the usual widgets, you don't 'get' them, you have to do as explained on the wiki of awesome.

Proviso you want to use those, I can give you a hand. If so, what widgets do you want?

---

Nothing is sacred