Using fastest-mirror to determine WLAN speed
Posted: 02 Dec 2023, 16:01
I realized inside my flat there I still get my prefered WLAN, but quite sluggish speed-wise. So I used or abused? fastest-mirror to make a comparison.
Both tests work the same way: I use my Samsung Q40 mono-core machine [Porteus 4.0 i586 (32 bit) Xfce] as WLAN access point that shares its internet via LAN and Network manager with my main machine (x88-64 Porteus 5.01, Xfce)
Here are the results: (I only give you the sorted by speed list fastest-mirror prints at the bottom)
First the access times further away from my wide south facing window, concrete walls on all sides:And now the results for the same setup, but this time near the wide south facing window, concrete walls only on two sides:
Quite the difference, eh?
I came to the idea of using fastest-mirror for that when I realized the WLAN "strength bar" from more inside my flat (the test at 16:30) looked the very same than the one from near the window (the test at 16:47) but all pages I accessed via Pale Moon and even accessing my IMAP email server via interlink were sluggish at best.
And for some reason, that difference in real network performance is mirrored using fastest-mirror.
(pun intended) 
Both tests work the same way: I use my Samsung Q40 mono-core machine [Porteus 4.0 i586 (32 bit) Xfce] as WLAN access point that shares its internet via LAN and Network manager with my main machine (x88-64 Porteus 5.01, Xfce)
Here are the results: (I only give you the sorted by speed list fastest-mirror prints at the bottom)
First the access times further away from my wide south facing window, concrete walls on all sides:
Code: Select all
root@rava:/# fastest-mirror # 02.12.2023 16:30
Results:
0.220437 http://ftpmirror1.infania.net/mirror/porteus/
0.224489 http://linux.rz.rub.de/porteus/
0.238846 http://ftp.vim.org/ftp/os/Linux/distr/porteus/
0.775579 http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/porteus/
3.127936 http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/dl.porteus.org/
3.356486 https://mirrors.dotsrc.org/porteus/
4.000031 http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/porteus/
4.000890 http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/pub/linux/porteus/
4.000950 https://mirror.yandex.ru/mirrors/porteus/
4.001200 http://www6.frugalware.org/mirrors/linux/porteus/
4.001770 http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/porteus/
Code: Select all
root@rava:/# fastest-mirror # 02.12.2023 16:47
Results:
0.093845 http://ftp.vim.org/ftp/os/Linux/distr/porteus/
0.134303 http://ftpmirror1.infania.net/mirror/porteus/
0.140816 http://linux.rz.rub.de/porteus/
0.186235 https://mirrors.dotsrc.org/porteus/
0.240784 http://www6.frugalware.org/mirrors/linux/porteus/
0.267941 https://mirror.yandex.ru/mirrors/porteus/
0.301525 http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/dl.porteus.org/
0.317031 http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/porteus/
0.531335 http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/pub/linux/porteus/
0.594994 http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/porteus/
1.133955 http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/porteus/
I came to the idea of using fastest-mirror for that when I realized the WLAN "strength bar" from more inside my flat (the test at 16:30) looked the very same than the one from near the window (the test at 16:47) but all pages I accessed via Pale Moon and even accessing my IMAP email server via interlink were sluggish at best.
And for some reason, that difference in real network performance is mirrored using fastest-mirror.
(pun intended)