Slow Network w/ Slack 9.1
 

First of all, I admit I am a complete newbie when it comes to Linux....
I've been running Mandrake, and decided to also install slack on the same machine (2 diff HD's, you get the idea) My main question is this,
while in Slack, my network (ADSL connection to the 'net) seems extraordinarily slow (like I'm on a 14.4 modem) but with the same machine/hardware setup in mandy, it runs at what I consider normal ADSL speeds.... has anyone else seen this?? and if so, is there a way to "optimize" your network connection ?? FYI my network hardware setup looks like this
SIS 900 Ethernet (on the MB)

Iblitzz BW1605 Wireless Ethernet card(not recognized by linux yet, gonna have to install the modules)

Generic 4 port wired/wireless router

WireSpeed ADSL modem.

This computer is the only one on the network, and I have to sign on to ADSL via PPPoE, which my router is set up to do anytime there is a network request. I know this is a networking question, but I only seem to have trouble while running slack, so I thought it was appropriate here.

I forgot to mention, this prob only seems to occur when I do http requests, other services like POP3 and FTP run fine

I have the same problem on VirtualPC for Mac OSX.
Network speed between Slackware 9.1 virtual machine and OSX host is
getting slower and slower when I untar, e.g., kernel source,
from OSX via NFS. Ping to OSX host returns sometimes 1000ms.
When I reboot slack, network speed seems to be all right at first,
but getting slower again under the same command.
I have never had this type of problems with other distributions or operating systems on VirtualPC such as Mandrake 9.0, KNOPPIX 3.1,
NEXTSTEP, or Windows 2K (SMB).
VirtualPC emulates DecChip(10Base) and Linux uses tulip driver for this card.

Replacing the tulip driver by de4x5 seems to be all right for VPC --
I booted the KNOPPIX disk image to find that it loads de4x5 instead of tulip.

I added the following two lines to /etc/modules.conf:

alias eth0 de4x5
options de4x5 args='eth0:fdx autosense=TP'

and edited /etc/hotplug/blacklist as follows:

# tulip ... de4x5, xircom_tulip_cb, dmfe (...) handle same devices
#de4x5
tulip

I tried Red Hat, Debian, Plamo, KNOPPIX, Mandrake, and this time, Slackware.
Among them Slackware is the fastest Linux distribution on Virtual PC for Mac OSX. KDE Light is quite satisfactory and I feel little need for remote display to Apple's X11.