TCP/IP Speed Question

Seryl · n00b Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 8

I've got an old, small Shuttle XPC system that I'm using for a home file server. It has a Realtek 8139 NIC onboard, though I've also used a 3COM card and an Intel EtherExpress eepro100 card. When FreeBSD 5.x is installed, all network transfers run between 9.5Mb/s and 10.3Mb/s. When I'm running any flavour of Linux (Gentoo, Slackware, etc.), the network will only transfer between 7.0Mb/s and 8.3Mb/s. Can Linux match FreeBSD's speed, or is that the fastest it can go? This is on an internal 100Mbps switch.

I've tried tuning the TCP variables (rmem, wmem, etc.), changed to different file systems (ext3, XFS, JFS, etc.). I like Gentoo over FreeBSD, but I'd like to know if the networking can go any faster. Any suggestions?

I'm sorry, I'm not infront of the system right now, so I can't really post configuration data. I'm just wondering if that network speed is normal or if it's slow. Thanks for any responses.

moocha · Watchman Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Posts: 5722

It's slow. You should be getting speeds close to the theoretical maximum link capacity right out of the box.
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Seryl · n00b Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 8

Sorry for the long delay. Work got a bit hectic.

I just installed an IBM EtherExpress 10/100 nic and am using it instead of the RealTek. The speeds are now hovering between 7.8 and 9.0 Mbps. What I don't like is that FreeBSD bursted to 10.5 Mbps then stabilized at around 9.4 - 9.9. Gentoo seems to burst to 9.6 and stabilize at 7.5 - 7.8. I know this isn't a big deal (it's just a home network), I'd just like to know why I can't get performance on Linux that I can on FreeBSD.