Why does BSD loads web pages slow?

[bigb89]

Hi guys,

I have and older computer that had windows XP installed on it. I have DSL and my ISP is AT&T. Now here's the problem:

When this computer was running Windows XP, I could connect to the iternet and browse web pages really quick. So I decided to wipe XP out of the drive and load FreeBSD to use this computer as a desktop station. But for some reason, it takes so long for web pages to load (about 7-8 times more slow than when the machine was running XP) when I'm using freeBSD. Now here's what I find weird:

Before I had installed FreeBSD on this machine, I installed linux (fedora 6). And the web pages take even longer than FreeBSD for them to load.

I have also installed freeBSD on vmware on a Windows Vista host, but internet was still slow.

So why is it that FreeBSD (also linux) takes way longer to load web pages while Windows XP AND Vista load web pages really fast?

Is there anyway that I can fix this issue? (this is one of the major reason that prevents me from wanting to useBSD as a workstation).

[robbak]

The only thing I can think of is if Internet Explorer (or firefox) on the XP install had most of the page in its cache already. The fresh installs of (whatever OS) would have to pull the pages in afresh across the net. (You neglected to mention your connection's bitrate, or what browser and version you were using in XP, Vista, BSD or linux. In fact, you neglected to give us any information of any kind )

[anomie]

Originally Posted by bigb89

Is there anyway that I can fix this issue?

That all depends on what the issue is, exactly. When you say the pages load slowly, do they take awhile to resolve, or do they resolve immediately and then take a long time to download the page + images?

If the former, I'd recommend trying the following:
# echo 'nameserver 208.67.222.222' > /etc/resolv.conf

Now fire up your browser and try again. Any quicker?

[bigb89]

Thanks for the replies guys!

No, as far as I know, this issue doesn't have anything to do with "cache", because even with a fresh install of XP, the web pages will load just as quick.

As far as the browser I use: I use firefox on Windows XP, Vista, BSD, and Linux. But like I said, web pages load alot quicker on Windows.

That all depends on what the issue is, exactly. When you say the pages load slowly, do they take awhile to resolve, or do they resolve immediately and then take a long time to download the page + images?

Sorry I wasn't very clear on my first post. But yes, it takes a while for the pages to resolve, but once they resolve, images, etc are loaded quick.

I'm gonna try your suggestion by adding that nameserver to /etc/resolv.conf and I'll let you guys know how it goes.

[corey_james]

Run your site from RAM - good old solaris trick was to point apache to /tmp and when apache starts, copy your web content into there... makes for very fast web delivery!

[ivanatora]

Originally Posted by corey_james

Run your site from RAM - good old solaris trick was to point apache to /tmp and when apache starts, copy your web content into there... makes for very fast web delivery!

Eh, could you explain that a bit further?

I have a question about browsing web pages, too. The problem is (Firefox) sometimes times out, but instead of giving the default 'Web server does not respond' message it loads the web page at example.com. It is weird and first I thought my ISP is fucking with me sending me false DNS responses. But I'm triple booting the same machine with Linux and Windows and I'm using the same name server everywhere and I have problems only with FreeBSD.
Second, I thought it is something with the Firefox build, so I tried Opera. And still the same - if a web page timed out, example.com is open instead.
Any ideas?

[richardpl]

There is no useful information at al. Post your configuration and non-default settings.....

[robbak]

More than anything, that post makes no sense at all! The contents does not match the quote: It reads like it is just an attempt to polute google's pagerank info.

If the question is valid, then you appear to have spyware somewhere, although attacking firefox with this sort of thing is new to me. More reason to remove the links in that post.

[TerryP]

Originally Posted by ivanatora

Eh, could you explain that a bit further?

What he means, is for a system in service as a web server, to create a memory disk, mount it as your webservers DocumentRoot (in apache speak), and transfer your content to it. Thus making file system I/O requests to the served files made by the webserver
, happen in memory rather then seek across a hard disk.


Unless you are talking to a server that is within your administrative domain, it's a great idea (ram permitting), but useless for your situation.

[ivanatora]

Originally Posted by richardpl

There is no useful information at al. Post your configuration and non-default settings.....

All settings are default - freshly installed FreeBSD 7, freshly built Firefox 3 from ports, no add-ons. Internet settings (nameserver, gateway, ip, mask) are entered by hand. The machine is behind NAT.
Nothing unusual.
Now lets sit and try to think a bit. Is there some service at FreeBSD that acts like a domain name resolver? I don't mean Bind or /etc/hosts, but something like that? The site name 'anything com' looks like an example in some configuration file, that is left behind. So: web page time out, local resolving service takes control, that service is polling that domain name from its cache/config. Is that a valuable scenario? If it is, please someone that knows well FreeBSD tell me if there could be such a service?

I've also checked for active firewall rules, diverting DNS traffic to foreign name servers, but nothing

Spyware under Unix? Really?

I've removed the links.

[robbak]

We'd need to know where the redirection is taking place. Is it taking place in firefox, a local names server, or a remote one.
tcpdump is your friend. # tcpdump -vv -i rl0 > ~/trafficdump (where rl0 is your network device) will create a file called trafficdump with descriptions of all your packets.
As for spy-ware under Unix; Well, it will happen. I am surprised to see how little they are targeting Firefox. But I don't think that is it. It's what I'd be looking for if a winbox was doing that, though.

My thought is that somewhere along the line, one of the name servers you have set is giving you anything-dot-com's address instead of the one you want. Why, how and where is still a mystery. (Have we got DNS cache poisoning going on here???)