Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 23:16:40 -0500 From: Mikhail Teterin <mi+kde@aldan.algebra.com> To: advocacy@FreeBSD.org Cc: chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: BSD's reliable networking (Re: High-latency/long-distance IP stack) Message-ID: <200302062316.40372@aldan> In-Reply-To: <15939.36.855969.496240@emerger.yogotech.com> References: <20030205233916.6156C2A89E@canning.wemm.org> <20030206022854.G40993@12-234-22-23.pyvrag.nggov.pbz> <15939.36.855969.496240@emerger.yogotech.com>
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A success story to share. My significant other's grandfather, who lives one floor below us in the same appartment building, was (after I set things up for him) using our DSL connection to play chess online, e-mail a few friends, and read news. The chess software was for Windows, so his OS had to be Windows 98 (on an old Pentium @75MHz). The connection between him and us had to be wireless (802.11b) -- you can't run cables through the stairwell. The setup worked most of the time, but sometimes the connections were stopping. Sometimes realligning the antenna would help, but we did not believe, anything more could be done -- the walls and the ceiling are concrete and brick after all. A newer machine (Xeon @400MHz) became available and I decided to upgrade him. Since I also found out, there are Unix programs, that work with his chessclub.com, I installed FreeBSD. I was worried, the "barely-there" wireless connection will give me more headache, because we will not be using "the official" drivers for his Orinoco card, but, in fact, the connection seems flawless. You have to run ping to notice the occasional packet drops -- at about the same rate as before -- but the upper network layers still work -- there are no annoying timeouts or connection drops (even NFS works reliably), he did not have to climb up the chair to reajust the antenna since... If it is true, that Microsoft took the BSD network stack for their shameful OS-wannabes, they did a really poor job... His other two applications -- web-browser, and e-mail client -- are also working fine. He was previously using Netscape-4.5 (the last 4.x version, that had Russian translation). Konqueror and Kmail are his new tools... -mi P.S. If you were wondering, my ISP -- SpeakEasy.net -- is not against connection sharing (or running a server, for that matter)... Switch at: http://www.speakeasy.net/refer/29957 and I'll get a credit :-) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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