I am using Fedora 1 and use the Network Device Control to connect to my ISP, which is EarthLink. They have a fast download option, but no Linux support for it. NetZero now supports Linux, sort of (Lindows). I would like to obtain faster downloads and is making a Lindows package also work on Fedora an option? NetZero offers their fast download option for $14.95 a month which is less than I now pay for 52K.

You could actually install that with debian. Lindows is a debian distro.

Don't fall for it. If you read the small print on the tube, it states on there that it doesn't increase speed for downloads. All it is is merely your frequent websites cached on their servers. You could just cache the sites on your computer. Overall, your linespeed won't change noticibly, if at all. 56K is capped by the FCC at 48.8, so you won't get anything higher.

You can get more throughput by using compression. I can hit 88 kbps on text files. v . 44 offers up to 6 to 1 compression, and the older standard (i forget the designation) offers up to 4 to 1. Obviously u can see the compression with bitmaps and text, but not with a bz2 download. 88 kbps makes sense when u figure that's near 8/9 of 115 kbps serial port. Maybe i could hit higher rates with a winmodem or softmodem, but then i'm restricting my use of alternative OS.

Get a good v .92 modem and try to dial a v .92 modem pool that supports v .44. The proxies or cache engines of isp's do help some, i think aol's compress graphics also which helps.

If you can get the lindows client, i'd be grateful if you could post a link. I can't seem to find it yet. Not sure if they did it like the aol client, with some sort of wine bastardization or what. One prob with using PPP with netzero is that they used to hash the passwords. U could use rasspy.exe to get them though. They also seem to know when u are viewing ads with the official client vs. ppp, but it's worth a try.

As far as getting the package to work on redhat, etc. u might be able to use "alien"?? to convert the .deb to an .rpm.

If you're willing to settle for < 150 hours a month, there are some $5 to $10 ppp providers complete with pop3, imap, etc. An easier route than tweaking netzero. I've been using MSN and AOL occasionally, MSN is ppp but no public pop3 that i know of. I found an smtp server for AOL but can't find an easy way to get inbound mail. I also found imap for AOL but it seems to use some sort of obfuscated variant, i haven't figured it out ... yet. AOL doesn't use PPP though so u'll need penggy to use P3/FLAP.

By jumping from provider to provider you can save a bundle by taking advantage of special deals ... just set up a permanent pop3 or webmail somewhere else. If you do a lot of downloading, there's no substitute for broadband though, even a budget 256k/256k. Hope this helps.

Strongly agree with r_jensen11. If you pay your current ISP more than the price of this, I guess it's ok. But one of my friend got this crap and said nothing changes. High traffic sites such as google, yahoo, hotmail are faster cauz people visit them frequently and in their catche. Any other sites loads at normal speed. I personally don't use dial up. With dial up how can I even download and try a new distro? Every week I use about 2.5 - 3 GB bandwith on my 3MB/s cable.

I do have to agree that 3MB/s cable kicks. The fastest speed test result I got from www.dslreports.com said I was at 3100kb/s or something like that. And downloading Slackware updates at 700kb/s is very nice.

Yep broadband kicks ***. I hit about 1.25 megabits/s when i had dsl. Cable around here is 2 megabit. No caps that i know of, and i ran servers and everything. I used gobs of b/w early on and was never issued an abuse letter.

I download iso's on dialup but i admit it sucks. Takes about 36 hours for 700 meg, so i don't even mess with multi iso sets, i order them instead. It goes without saying i have to use wget on dialup.

Here's my cost breakdown of (cheap 256k) dsl and phone + inet

DSL: $40
256k/256k (actual 224/224)
modem: $50 (one time cost)
setup fee: $50 (one time cost)

Dialup:
56 kbps (actual 40/40 with bursts of 80)
MSN dialup internet $21.95
decent USR external $40 (one time cost)
catch a call $40 (one time cost)
call waiting $5

No matter how u add it up there are only a few ways to substantially undercut DSL lite on bellsouth: to go with a very cheap (and crappy) isp capped at 150 hours, to use a windows based isp software, or to share with an existing voice line in which case u need call waiting and/or caller id. Now if ur in satellite only range, i can see how dialup could be cheaper.

There's also a smaller company around here that offers $50 dsl with static ip and allowed to host servers (small ones). U can recoup some of ur money by hosting a couple of sites and asking for contributions.

yeah, I can't even imagine trying to go back to dial-up. Over at our school, we have a T3 connection, I'm pretty sure, maybe a step up. But since it's spread out so far and split up so much, I'm lucky if I can download graphics or web pages at more than 3k. It pretty much reminds me of my dial-up days. That's why if I need files, I use my usb key and bring it to school, rather than having to spend the whole classtime getting the file.

lol.... when I had dialup in my P166 running win98, my download speed was always 7kb/s. Maximum would be 12kb/s and minumem is when I get disconnected as usual in every 10 minutes.