In need of some help

Download speed: Been there, tried that. 56 hours is about right. I currently have a 'light' HS 'net package with D/L speeds of about 26 Kbs; a full 700 M disk takes 6-8 hours. My previous 56 K dialup ran at about 3.5 Kbs on a good day which is about 1/7 of my current capabilities, so a full 700 M disk would take about 7 times times as long =42 to 56 hours. This is actual tested d/l speeds, not theoretical calculated so should be reliable.

samhainbaphomet: You might try kanotix. It is a very good knoppix spinoff & there are sources to purchase disks: http://kanotix.com/info/index.php

Mandrake is a good easy to install distro but if you do much updating, custom setup etc you will want to try a debian based distro such as Knoppix or Kanotix. Apt-get makes this soooo much easier.

I got my first Linux system from Linux Format magazine which includes a disk or two with each issue & generally features a distro every 2nd or 3rd issue. There are other Linux magazines which do the same. I think Knoppix was on Linux World a couple of months ago.

You might also try to find other Linux users in your area who may have disks, check your local library. Most libraries maintain a listing of local activity & hobby associations & groups. If you are near a university, also try the university bookstore &/or contact the computer science dept at the university.

I even saw Mandrake & SuSe for sale at Future Shop once but both were out of date releases & rather overpriced.

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Originally Posted by CrashedAgain

Download speed: Been there, tried that. 56 hours is about right. I currently have a 'light' HS 'net package with D/L speeds of about 26 Kbs; a full 700 M disk takes 6-8 hours. My previous 56 K dialup ran at about 3.5 Kbs on a good day which is about 1/7 of my current capabilities, so a full 700 M disk would take about 7 times times as long =42 to 56 hours. This is actual tested d/l speeds, not theoretical calculated so should be reliable.

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I think I see the point that's confusing you. I suspect very strongly (heck, I know it for a fact) that your DSL Lite D/L speed is close to 26 KBs, not 26 Kbs. The difference is bits and bytes. Your getting around 26 K Bytes on your DSL lite speed (it's usually rated here at 256 kbs, since bit speeeds sounds better than byte speeds). Yes, at that speed, running full out from a "good" server (one that can feed as fast as your can receive), a full 700 meg BYTE download should take about 8 hours. In contrast a 56k modem is rated at 56 k bits. And back when I last used one in the US they were prohibited by our FCC at running any faster than 53 k bits. That wasn't a big issue though, because line quality was the major factor, and many users were lucky to get 48 k bits or less, Your 3.5 k sounds about right, but only if it's 3.5 KBs (3.5 K Bytes), not bits. If it was really bits then you would have had an awful line, but I doubt it since even a 24K modem or even an old 9600 baud modem would have been a lot faster.

So yes, you can download a 700 meg ISO on your DSL lite in 8 hours. But there is absolutely no way that anyone could download it overnight with a 56 k modem, no matter what kind of remarks he responds with.

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Originally Posted by NewGuy

I have an advanced degree in math. So people believe me in such calculatations.....

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You may have an advanced degree in math. I only have an education in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and thirty some years of work experience in computers, mostly focusing on networking and real time process control. But no one has ever downloaded a knoppix iso on a dial-up modem overnight. I've been working with modems since the days of 100 baud and 300 baud modems, and I know very well the hard and fast limitations of a 56k modem.

rrfish72 actually had the perfect solution. He said "Don't believe me then". I'm certainly willing to take that advice, and I would suggest that others do too.

As to your "story", it was certainly light on facts and even numbers for a story about math. Do you even know what the real download speed of your line is? There are plenty of ways to measure it, but your story seemed to imply that you do not. Perhaps your ISP simply raised the capacity and you didn't find out (many cable systems, for example, were marketed at 1.5 megabit but were later upgrader to 3 megabit. And the Cable company did not announce this until the upgrade was complete, although many users noticed this as it happened. There is another massive upgrade in progress now to 4.5 gig.) And, of course, there are people working with uncapped modems, as the basic cable system is capable of considerably more but the cable operators tell the modems what speed to limit themselves to. But none of that has much bearing on what can be done with a 56k dial up modem. After all, if your SDSL line is actually twice as fast as what you are paying for, a telco mistake perhaps, as you seem to think, how does that in any way change the upper limit of what a 56k dial-up modem can do? It doesn't change it one bit! It has nothing to do with what we are talking about. There are things that can be done to help dial-up (like compression can be applied to the connection), but these have their limits, and no one is moving 700 megByte of Knoppix iso file across a dial-up connection overnight, and even you're "I get twice what I expect" story doesn't really change that, or come close to the speed improvement one would need to make the overnight story work. Take rrfish72 's solution.

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Mandrake is a good easy to install distro but if you do much updating, custom setup etc you will want to try a debian based distro such as Knoppix or Kanotix. Apt-get makes this soooo much easier.

I got my first Linux system from Linux Format magazine which includes a disk or two with each issue & generally features a distro every 2nd or 3rd issue. There are other Linux magazines which do the same. I think Knoppix was on Linux World a couple of months ago.

You might also try to find other Linux users in your area who may have disks, check your local library. Most libraries maintain a listing of local activity & hobby associations & groups. If you are near a university, also try the university bookstore &/or contact the computer science dept at the university.

I even saw Mandrake & SuSe for sale at Future Shop once but both were out of date releases & rather overpriced.

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I will try and look in some different places, I will also keep an eye out for any magazines that have any live CD's :) I assumed Knoppix would be limited and not include too much, but after reading more about it it seems it has more to offer than I used to think. :)