Here's a weird problem: On my FC2 machine, DSL speed tests show only half the download speed (600Kb/sec) of a Windows2000 Pro machine sitting just across the aisle (1.2Mb/sec). Both are linked to a wireless access point with USB adapters.

Particulars: 800 MHZ Athlon running an FC2 kernel 2.6.8-1.521 in 256Mb RAM

After considerable poking on the web, I have tried the following, issued from the root console:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_sack

==no improvement==

echo 8388608 > /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_default
echo 8388608 > /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max
echo 8388608 > /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_default
echo 8388608 > /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max
echo "4096 87380 4194304" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_rmem
echo "4096 87380 4194304" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_wmem

==no improvement==

sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_default_win_scale=0
sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_moderate_rcvbuf=0

==no improvement==

ifconfig wlan0 | grep MTU
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MTU:1500 Metric:1

I am on ASDL with MTU:1492, so I changed the NIC MTU

ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1492

The MTU is changed and NIC doesn't show errors:

/sbin/ifconfig wlan0

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:41:5C:53:74
inet addr:172.16.1.33 Bcast:172.16.255.255 Mask:255.255.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20c:41ff:fe5c:5374/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MTU:1492 Metric:1
RX packets:49320 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:42767 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:33078599 (31.5 Mb) TX bytes:7838200 (7.4 Mb)

==no improvement==

path MTU discovery is enabled so MTU changes shouldn't be needed:

cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_no_pmtu_disc
0

Well, thats all I can find... What am I missing? Any suggestions gratefully appreciated.
Can't be possible that WinDOZE is faster!
Thanks

/Ducl

I don't know how to fix your problem, but I just wanted to voice my view on your situation.

1) Location makes a difference in a wireless setup. Your windows machine may be in a better place to link up to your wireless access point than your linux machine.

2) Linux driver development is notoriously behind windows driver development. From what I've seen through my time with linux, no one just writes drivers for hardware just because they have the time. They write drivers according to demand. If a particular piece of hardware becomes popular because of it's features (actuallly, I think it's more price driven), then that particular piece of hardware will start to get increasing support. It may be that the driver you're using to give functionality to your USB wireless device isn't very optimised yet, which you are seeing in slower transfer rates.

Not very helpful, but something to think about?

Thanks d0odman, I than't thought of that. I had a lot of fiddling to do with the kernel and the atmel driver before I got the USB wireless to work at all. This may be a dead end for me until (unless) somebody smarter than me optimizes the driver.

Appreciate your comments.

/Ducl