Hi All!

I have a problem with my web page loading speed and audio streaming (shoutcast) and I'm pretty much tired searching for a solution.
Currently I use Gentoo hardened with 2.6.14 kernel.

1. I tried to load a web page using Firefox, Mozilla, Opera and Konqueror, but everything seemed to take about the same time.
What is even more annoying, it takes a few times shorter to load using windoze.
In fact I don't remember seeing my Linux loading web pages quicker than windoze.
Maybe I'm doing something really bad in kernel configuration... I always try to include most networking features to my kernel. Could it be the problem?

2. Recently a new problem occured (from 2.6.12 kernels). When I tried to listen some music using shoutcast (using XMMS and Amarok; both the most recent versions), it worked just few seconds. Then it started to drop out and finally stopped playing.
A few moments before it starts to drop out my network speed monitor shows that the downstream falls. This repeats when I try to play the stream again.
It looks like the kernel doesn't allow these packets to flow.
BTW ssh connections seem to be affected this way, too.
I thought this could be caused by QoS and fair queuing, but can these features make the problem? I can't believe that.

The second problem didn't occur when I ran my new kernel the first time.
And firstly the web page loading was a bit faster, too.
But as I used the kernel, it was getting worse.

Can anybody explain this?

Thanx in advance.

In order to get a specific reply...
What's your hardware configuration? Are you using dail-up, dsl or ?
Do you have a NIC card or have an external modem and using the serial port?
If you're using dial-up or dsl, have you had your line quality checked for noise?
Have you tried pinging a site to test for the optimal MTU setting?
Try running the tweek test at www.dslreports.com this should show if you have dropped or fragmented packets.

Hardware:
Acer TravelMate (notebook)
Wireless: Intel IPW 2200
Network card: Broadcom tg3 (1Gb)

Connection: ADSL, 1Mbps

I have default MTU (1500). I tried less and nothing changed at all.
Both network devices work fine and there is almost no difference using them. The internet connectivity behavior doesn't change.
LAN seems to work fine. Torrents and HTTP/FTP downloads works well, too.
The problem is to make connection. It takes much longer time than on the other machines in my network (running WinXP). It performs better even on my machine when running WinXP.
The browser is waiting for the hostname to be resolved. I just wonder why links makes this in maybe less than one second and the others don't!

Even if that's just a temporary solution I got rid of the second problem removing all fair queuing and QoS stuff from my kernel.
It seems to work a little bit faster now...

It looks like the fair queuing and QoS stuff requires some extra configuration.

This is part of my kernel .config:

#
# Networking
#
CONFIG_NET=y

#
# Networking options
#
CONFIG_PACKET=y
# CONFIG_PACKET_MMAP is not set
CONFIG_UNIX=y
CONFIG_XFRM=y
# CONFIG_XFRM_USER is not set
CONFIG_NET_KEY=y
CONFIG_INET=y
CONFIG_IP_MULTICAST=y
CONFIG_IP_ADVANCED_ROUTER=y
CONFIG_ASK_IP_FIB_HASH=y
# CONFIG_IP_FIB_TRIE is not set
CONFIG_IP_FIB_HASH=y
CONFIG_IP_MULTIPLE_TABLES=y
CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_FWMARK=y
CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH=y
CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH_CACHED=y
CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH_RR=y
CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH_RANDOM=y
CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH_WRANDOM=y
CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH_DRR=y
CONFIG_IP_ROUTE_VERBOSE=y
CONFIG_IP_PNP=y
CONFIG_IP_PNP_DHCP=y
CONFIG_IP_PNP_BOOTP=y
CONFIG_IP_PNP_RARP=y
CONFIG_NET_IPIP=y
CONFIG_NET_IPGRE=y
CONFIG_NET_IPGRE_BROADCAST=y
CONFIG_IP_MROUTE=y
CONFIG_IP_PIMSM_V1=y
CONFIG_IP_PIMSM_V2=y
CONFIG_ARPD=y
CONFIG_SYN_COOKIES=y
CONFIG_INET_AH=y
CONFIG_INET_ESP=y
CONFIG_INET_IPCOMP=y
CONFIG_INET_TUNNEL=y
CONFIG_INET_DIAG=y
CONFIG_INET_TCP_DIAG=y
CONFIG_TCP_CONG_ADVANCED=y

#
# TCP congestion control
#
CONFIG_TCP_CONG_BIC=y
CONFIG_TCP_CONG_WESTWOOD=m
CONFIG_TCP_CONG_HTCP=m
CONFIG_TCP_CONG_HSTCP=y
# CONFIG_TCP_CONG_HYBLA is not set
# CONFIG_TCP_CONG_VEGAS is not set
# CONFIG_TCP_CONG_SCALABLE is not set

#
# IP: Virtual Server Configuration
#
# CONFIG_IP_VS is not set
CONFIG_IPV6=y
CONFIG_IPV6_PRIVACY=y
CONFIG_INET6_AH=y
CONFIG_INET6_ESP=y
CONFIG_INET6_IPCOMP=y
CONFIG_INET6_TUNNEL=y
CONFIG_IPV6_TUNNEL=y
CONFIG_NETFILTER=y
# CONFIG_NETFILTER_DEBUG is not set
CONFIG_BRIDGE_NETFILTER=y
CONFIG_NETFILTER_NETLINK=y
CONFIG_NETFILTER_NETLINK_QUEUE=y
CONFIG_NETFILTER_NETLINK_LOG=y

#
# IP: Netfilter Configuration
#
CONFIG_IP_NF_CONNTRACK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_CT_ACCT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_CONNTRACK_MARK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_CONNTRACK_EVENTS=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_CONNTRACK_NETLINK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_CT_PROTO_SCTP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_FTP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_IRC=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NETBIOS_NS=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TFTP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_AMANDA=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_PPTP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_QUEUE=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_IPTABLES=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_LIMIT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_IPRANGE=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MAC=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_PKTTYPE=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MARK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_MULTIPORT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TOS=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_RECENT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_ECN=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_DSCP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_AH_ESP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_LENGTH=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TTL=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_TCPMSS=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_STEALTH=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_HELPER=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_STATE=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_CONNTRACK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_OWNER=y
# CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_PHYSDEV is not set
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_ADDRTYPE=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_REALM=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_SCTP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_DCCP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_COMMENT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_CONNMARK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_CONNBYTES=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_HASHLIMIT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MATCH_STRING=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_FILTER=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_REJECT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_LOG=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_ULOG=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_TCPMSS=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_NFQUEUE=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_NEEDED=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_MASQUERADE=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_REDIRECT=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_NETMAP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_SAME=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_SNMP_BASIC=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_IRC=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_FTP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_TFTP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_AMANDA=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_PPTP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_MANGLE=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_TOS=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_ECN=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_DSCP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_MARK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_CLASSIFY=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_TTL=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_CONNMARK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_CLUSTERIP=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_RAW=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_TARGET_NOTRACK=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_ARPTABLES=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_ARPFILTER=y
CONFIG_IP_NF_ARP_MANGLE=y

#
# IPv6: Netfilter Configuration (EXPERIMENTAL)
#
CONFIG_IP6_NF_QUEUE=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_IPTABLES=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_LIMIT=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_MAC=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_RT=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_OPTS=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_FRAG=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_HL=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_MULTIPORT=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_OWNER=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_MARK=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_IPV6HEADER=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_AHESP=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_LENGTH=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_EUI64=y
# CONFIG_IP6_NF_MATCH_PHYSDEV is not set
CONFIG_IP6_NF_FILTER=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_TARGET_LOG=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_TARGET_REJECT=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_TARGET_NFQUEUE=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_MANGLE=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_TARGET_MARK=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_TARGET_HL=y
CONFIG_IP6_NF_RAW=y

#
# DECnet: Netfilter Configuration
#
# CONFIG_DECNET_NF_GRABULATOR is not set

#
# Bridge: Netfilter Configuration
#
# CONFIG_BRIDGE_NF_EBTABLES is not set

#
# DCCP Configuration (EXPERIMENTAL)
#
CONFIG_IP_DCCP=m
CONFIG_INET_DCCP_DIAG=m

#
# DCCP CCIDs Configuration (EXPERIMENTAL)
#
CONFIG_IP_DCCP_CCID3=m
CONFIG_IP_DCCP_TFRC_LIB=m

#
# DCCP Kernel Hacking
#
# CONFIG_IP_DCCP_DEBUG is not set
# CONFIG_IP_DCCP_UNLOAD_HACK is not set

#
# SCTP Configuration (EXPERIMENTAL)
#
CONFIG_IP_SCTP=y
# CONFIG_SCTP_DBG_MSG is not set
# CONFIG_SCTP_DBG_OBJCNT is not set
# CONFIG_SCTP_HMAC_NONE is not set
# CONFIG_SCTP_HMAC_SHA1 is not set
CONFIG_SCTP_HMAC_MD5=y
CONFIG_ATM=m
CONFIG_ATM_CLIP=m
# CONFIG_ATM_CLIP_NO_ICMP is not set
CONFIG_ATM_LANE=m
CONFIG_ATM_MPOA=m
CONFIG_ATM_BR2684=m
# CONFIG_ATM_BR2684_IPFILTER is not set
CONFIG_BRIDGE=y
# CONFIG_VLAN_8021Q is not set
CONFIG_DECNET=m
# CONFIG_DECNET_ROUTER is not set
CONFIG_LLC=m
CONFIG_LLC2=m
CONFIG_IPX=m
# CONFIG_IPX_INTERN is not set
CONFIG_ATALK=m
# CONFIG_DEV_APPLETALK is not set
CONFIG_X25=m
CONFIG_LAPB=m
# CONFIG_NET_DIVERT is not set
# CONFIG_ECONET is not set
CONFIG_WAN_ROUTER=m
# CONFIG_NET_SCHED is not set
# CONFIG_NET_SCH_CLK_JIFFIES is not set
# CONFIG_NET_SCH_CLK_GETTIMEOFDAY is not set
# CONFIG_NET_SCH_CLK_CPU is not set
CONFIG_NET_CLS_ROUTE=y

#
# Network testing
#
# CONFIG_NET_PKTGEN is not set
# CONFIG_HAMRADIO is not set

I forgot to ask, are you using a hardware or software firewall? If your router has a f/w and your also running a s/w f/w there may be a conflict.
You may want to try disabling the linux f/w. Go to system settings --> server settings ---> services --> stop & uncheck iptables.

My router has its own lame firewall. It's configurable through web interface only.
I tried disabling my linux firewall (iptables --flush), but there was no change at all.

Anyway it's pretty strange because links loads pages immediately while the others are waiting for the hostname to be resolved. At least they write it on the status bar.

Hmmm, that's sounds like an issue I've had - if I by-pass my router and plug directly into the NIC card I have no delays.
I've contacted the router manufacture to find out if there's a problem with the router.
BTW, do you have the latest firmware for your router?

Thanks,
I'll try to update the firmware.

BTW the problem with streaming, ssh etc. is back again. Now my kernel is compiled without QoS and fair scheduling and it still occurs. And it is getting worse again.
I'll have to start using my old 2.6.11 kernel as it was the last "properly" working kernel...
I think I now understand why Gentoo 2.6.14 hardened kernel is still labeled TESTING )