My connection is 3Mbps down and 384Kbps up. Im using mandrake with a cable modem. i dont know why but my internet speeds are too slow. windoze works fine with the same connection but with linux it gets slow. are there any processes that i need to kill or settings that may help me increases the speeds

Just a thought: do you chave any errors on interfaces? - do an ifconfig and watch number of errors...

Maybe this will help:
- check /etc/resolv.conf (correct ip of dns servers?)
- disable ipv6
- adjust MTU if needed
- adjust txqueuelen
- play with /etc/sysctl.conf (you can easily find linux specific settings on the web)
- kill ipv6 support in FF
- and more...

the ip of dns servers is correct and i disabled my ipv6 using # echo "alias net-pf-10 off" >> /etc/modprobe.conf
i dont know how to do any of the other stuff u told me. can u plz plz point me to where i can find a guide or summin to make those changes

disable ipv6 in FF
enter in the address bar:
about:config
set filter to
ipv6

double click on
network.dns.disableIPv6
value: true

optimize MTU:
open terminal window and enter:

#ping -f -l 1472 www.server_name.com
you should get something like that:
Reply from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx: bytes=1472 time<1ms TTL=125
Reply from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx: bytes=1472 time<1ms TTL=125
Reply from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx: bytes=1472 time<1ms TTL=125

Ping statistics for xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms

now set the MTU value to 1500:
#ping -f -l 1500 www.server_name.com

you should see:
Pinging www.mcg.edu [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] with 1500 bytes of data:

Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.
Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set.

Ping statistics for xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)

Play with MTU value to get highest possible number without fragmentation

/etc/sysctl.conf

in the terminal window run:
sysctl -a | more
look for the values of:
tcp_timestamps
tcp_window_scaling
tcp_sack

all should be of the value 1
if not then enter the folloving commands in the terminal window:
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

These are only examples
you can also play with wmem, rmem and so on however I would read about it first.


Final note: all this may not help:
1. some sort of misconfiguration
2. your distro does not like specific NIC
3. other stuff

Anyway, try the above and tell how it goes.