Does it take a lot of time to download most GNU/Linux Software usually ? There are several small distros of Linux at ibiblio.org, however the server is so slow and a 50MB download takes like 3 hours. Moreover, it gets disconnected sometimes.

Vijay

Have you tried looking at mirrors? There are plenty of mirrors to the GNU public FTP. Personally I always use Ibiblo and it works fine. Are all other downloads working at full speed?


I ususally use http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ and get fine speeds.

I tried to download the Damn Small Linux as well as the llx BBC Linux from ibiblio. My Modem is 56K. For 14 to 20 MB it used to take like 20 minutes. so 50 Megs should take like 1 hour at the most. 3 hours is too much. The chances for disconnection and errors increase greatly. All mirrors for these also seem to be slow. Hence my original question.

Vijay

Dude... With dial up, you can't download a Meg a Minute... That's an insane speed for dial-up.. Aroud 16 KiloBytes a second -- not generally reachable with a 56K modem....

and you were saying you'd download 20 megs in 20 minutes?

I'd like to know what modem/ISP you were using, bro

-Shade

Adding: I'd say your speed is above average with dial-up, if anything.

3 Hours for 50 megs ain't bad with dialup

-Shade

I have got excellent speeds when downloading from Zdnet. I was also using a proxy then.

Have a 56K modem, use a good proxy, and then at Zdnet you can compare/estimate the download speeds before download.

Vijay

a bit of simple math here should help out, a 56K modem can transfer 56 kilobits per second(theoretical maximum), assuming all of this goes on data ie no stop/parity/flow control bits and the tcp/ip headers are negligable then the maximum amount of data flow is 56 kilobits per second, there are 8 bits in a byte giving a theoretical maximum of 7 kilobytes per second which would be (50*1024)/(7*60)=121.9 minutes to download 50MB, if its compressed before it comes down the line the best ratio you can get for lossless compression is 1/2 so that gets it down to an hour but that really is absolute theoretical minimum. and isnt really achieveable in the real world. i would say about 2.5 hours is average-good for 50MB on 56K dialup

Thanks for the helpful explanation. This helps to get a better picture.

An hour or an hour and a half is much bettter than 3 hours. I just wish that the server was faster. That is all. The faster it can be done, the better as less chances for error.

Vijay