Chuck
On Tue, 22 Oct 1996 thoth@purplefrog.com wrote:
>
> Well, I bought one of those TC-200-S6-1 cards (16650 UART, 460Kb max DTE) to
> use under Linux with my BitSurfr Pro. After a little fiddling I got my
> scripts to work again (the fact that the BitSurfr can't autobaud into or out
> of 230Kb makes it a hassle. Also, you have to "trick" the Linux kernel into
> doing 230Kb because it doesn't yet know about that speed. That bit is easy).
>
> All-in-all, I was able to increase my NetPipes (a raw TCP stream connection)
> throughput from 9.1KB/sec to 10KB/sec by moving to the higher DTE. This still
> isn't the 14KB/sec FTP times my friend with a pair of Ciscos reports over his
> ISDN line.
>
> Maybe the Cisco is doing compression.
> Maybe I have some stupid arguments to pppd.
> Maybe the BitSurfr isn't terribly good at saturating either link.
> Maybe the PortMaster isn't terribly good at saturating either link.
> Maybe that's near the theoretical limit of an ISDN connection after you
> factor in the TCP overhead.
> Maybe I have exposed inefficiencies in Linux's software.
> Maybe BellSouth's switch isn't really giving me 128Kb.
> Maybe "dd" isn't efficient at spewing/slurping data (but it's good for
> counting out bytes from /dev/zeros).
> Maybe my cat is chewing on grass right now.
>
> I don't know. I'm disappointed, but it was only $33 after shipping, so I'm
> not jumping off any bridges (not that there's anything high enough in Florida
> to jump off and kill yourself).
>
> My BitSurfr is still rock-solid with ROM J. I think it's been up for ~4 days
> straight now. The only reason it disconnects at all is I'm either running
> diald, or I reboot the machine to play Warcraft II.
>