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Two-Way Satellite Internet For Linux/Mac/BSD/etc.
tjw writes: "It seems that Starband has
gone out of their way to make sure that their bidirectional satellite
internet service was ONLY compatable with
Newer MS OS's. However, if you don't mind voiding your warranty, you can
strip out this "feature" and use the
external modem as its engineers intended by use of a crossover cable, NIC, and DHCP client on ANY modern Operating System. You still need a USB->serial cable and a MS Operating system to install/commission the hardware though."
Use it for automated, batched transfers. Use it for mail and newsgroups. Maybe use it for ftping large files.
But for god's sake, don't use it to browse the web, unless you plan to use your web browser like an Off-Line Reader...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
No, it's because if you offload tasks from hardware to software, you can make cheaper modems, and most PCs have CPU to spare.
I'm sure that when Red Hat are in a position to offer cash subsidies to hardware manufacturers, you will see much better Linux support.
Windows may not make a great workstation OS, but it's just fine if you're running some network daemons in the background on it and don't fiddle directly.
Yeah, there's a sentence I had to read twice!
Exactly. I personally can't see why anyone would opt for this given other choices. 500ms latency best case scenario is just not going to cut it for anyone who gives 1/2 a damn about their Internet experience.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Problem is, the damn software doesn't work for crap. First thing that most DPC users learn is to turn off the proxying entirely otherwise you'll see tons of broken images, 404's, etc, etc. In short, DirecPC's software seems to be buggy.
They also broadcast newsgroups (again, you're basically setting up a news server on your box), but what they broadcast (from what I've seen) is several days old.
Protocols are switchable to be terrestrial only (e.g., DNS) for those things that don't require bandwidth and where low latency is critical.
I haven't tried it yet, but from what I've elsewhere, VPN and the like becomes virtually unusable over satellite.
OTOH, downloads can fly during off-peak hours and when using a download accelerator I've seen 100-150K/sec speeds (bytes).
the goal of usb is to make ps/2, paralell and serial ports go away, and replace them with one general solution.
the mac did this 10 years ago.
needing half a dozend different ports to support a dozend different devices is just plain bad design and very sad.
(using usb for computer networking is a different matter, if that is a good idea remains to be seen)
greetings, eMBee.
--
Gnu is Not Unix / Linux Is Not UniX
No it wouldn't. Although you could stick this on your van, if you turned a corner it would stop working. The dish depends on being pointed due-south; it's pretty picky.
This reminds me of a similar instance here, when a new 'free' ISP gave out dialup software that would run under windows only. Me and a friend cracked this by setting up a ppp server running on his m/c in linux and dumping and observing the packets rcvd. We found out that the only thing this dialup software did was to append a single constant character to the password while sending it (cleartext of course) to the server.
Most of these and similar instances should not be seen as deliberate attempts to undermine OSos's or anything but in this competetive market, the person who releases the product first is at an advantage and in that case it makes sense for them to ship software only for a familiar, easy to develop, large mkt share OS than for a niche market..
they'll probably release the linux versions later.
Lessee here - I git onna dose ol'fangle-type chinese south-pointin' carts, and hitch it to de back o' my car - den throw the dish on top of dat!
Smile - I'm trying to be humorous here...
[ducks]
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Anyone in a metropolitan area will be better off checking out Cable/DSL/Sprint ION (if that ever shows up within the next forty months or so and is not overly priced).
I just did check out Sprint ION, and it seems like quite a deal. I'm not sure about Sprint, I've gotten some bad impressions of them in the past, and the service is via Earthlink, which also has its share of issues. But still, its quite a deal for what you pay for. 2 phone lines, including local and long distance, and a 8.0Mb/1.0Mb ADSL line for $120. Thats by far the fastest upstream I've seen on any ADSL and beats out every 1.1 SDSL price I've ever seen. I just called Sprint and they said that the service is available in "the midwest and west coast, and is moving eastward." Don't know what that means for me here in Boston, but it definitely looks like its worth a peek
God Fucking Damnit
tachyon will. latency over satellite is terrible though..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
we have it here, and as long as you don't use telnet and/or ssh, it's quite good. speed is good. a 2 second latency sucks though, but you'll have that with any sat link.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Those things aren't magic either. I setup my sister's machine to use the one I carried home over christmas -- over an hour later, the damn thing was passing traffic.
"Dialup Networking" is much easier to deal with.
This attitude kills me!
I had a very similar conversation with tech support at sympatico.ca in southern ontario about their DSL service. I was calling to try and find out what my options were for creating an airport network through their pppoe DSL service. The network guy just said "sorry we don't do networking and I will not even listen to you"
So I hit the boards and found out how to set it up in a couple of hours. Pretty simple, there is only one configuration that works with their service.........I thought to myself....this guy should be paid to know this stuff. He should have recognized from my questions that he could learned something himself in our interaction but no, he is looking for any excuse not to help the customer. It is a pity that tech support is such a lowly position these days and they can't attract anyone who cares enough to do a good job anymore.
Meanwhile they are being paid more than most people will ever make! I guess the attitude is that "i don't care whether this company makes it, I don't like being nice to people, I would rather be playing diablo than talking to the scum of the earth.......fools"
no sig.
Besides, anyone wise enough to use Linux will be wise enough to avoid using a satellite modem anyways. So really, its all kind of academic. :)
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
But on the other hand, you could keep a server elsewhere (colo, friend, etc) for clients to access or dial up when required. The only option I have at the moment is a somewhat flaky analogue line and let me tell you, I hunger for bandwidth. I've worked with high latency connections before (UK->US used to be terrible some days), even with telnet. The trick is to develop locally, deploy remotely. I would love DSL or cable but I wouldn't move to a city to get it. However, although my plans at the moment involve me living in the sticks, the maturation of my five year plan will see me trawling around the backwoods of TN trying to find somewhere that suits my lifestyle and has DSL/cable (though hopefully by then, it will be much more ubiquitous)
Rich
Here is a repost of a post from the Starband forum on Delphi http://www.delphi.com/gilat From: MWARCHUT Jan-4 11:48 am To: LANNYH1 3 of 3 613.3 in reply to 613.2 First you need a dead chicken, some holy water and a virgin. But seriously it was quite easy. After I got the dish all set and commisioned it. I shut it down and removed the USB ethernet card since linux doesn't work with it. I then used a crossover cable to connect the 180 to eth0 and set eth0 to the second address of the /30 subnet that is assigned to the 180 by the hub or if you want to wait for the bootup you could use DHCP instead. I then setup eth1 to a private network address and tied it into my home networking. I setup ip masquerading on the linux box and repointed all the internal PC's to the eth1 interface on the Linux box.
This is all you need to get masquerading going on a fairly current version of Linux.. I use Redhat 7.0 /sbin/depmod -a /sbin/modprobe ip_masq_ftp
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_always_defrag /sbin/ipchains -M -S 7200 10 160 /sbin/ipchains -P forward REJECT /sbin/ipchains -A forward -i eth0 -s 192.168.0.0/24 -j MASQ
I even have a 3com Ergo Audrey on my kitchen counter that is working via starband. I have one pc in my local network running the IPA software and it is proxying for all the other equipment so the performance is good.. I did some large downloads via linux last night and a 35 meg file only took about 6 minutes or so.. not too shabby.
Try being a TS lead. I was for a few years, and that folks is the limit for anyone not on medication. A normal front end support tech with one+ years experience is not a well individual and probably not good at actually helping anyone except in the morning and just after lunch.
The typical tech goes from excited and helpful -- and clueless -- to knowledgeable and couldn't give a damn. Answer 50 to over 200 calls a day for six months, and I doubt that you'll get any different reaction.
My role was to occasionaly man the phones to keep sharp, but mostly to answer hard questions that the front-end support couldn't figure out. The front end support people frequently didn't look in the database for answers.
Then, there's policy. For software -- and an ISP's support department handles software problems most of the time -- the cost of handling this type of question is just as high per minute as other calls. Unfortunately, it takes more time. You, as a customer, are given only a few seconds or minutes for support. If the tech does not handle enough calls per day, they are chewed out for basically doing good customer support. Why? One call answered well eats into the allocated time for other calls...and it is tightly monitored; from hang-ups, calls per product, type of questions asked, ...all with an eye on how to reduce the time the tech -- not you -- spend on the question or problem. Yes, this sucks.
The prefered way to handle this would be to have links on a company web site to the information you want, plus an automated fax system. That way the time spent on the phone by the tech is reduced to just telling the customer where they need to go. Most companies also opt for the annoying 'Did you look elsewhere?' message while you are waiting in the queue. Extending the queue time also 'helps' keep the calls shorter and eliminates the frequent callers since they know that there is a cost for a 'free' call. (That's right, it pays to be annoying and to anger people.)
Unfortunately, answering these questions often (30%~) leads to follow up questions and more phone time. It's also deceptive. Once you give out the information for people to help themselves, the type of calls become much more complex...and time consuming.
Yet, PHB CIO/CEOs only see the cost per call increasing...not that there are fewer calls per customer. In one way, the PHBs are right. The number of calls per customer doesn't decrease _that_ much...yet each call requires a more experienced tech. ...and each tech lasts from 6-9 months. Thus the quality of each call goes down the harder you try to increase overall quality.
That's why you get a tech who doesn't want to answer certian questions. It isn't worth it to anyone in the chain -- from the tech through the CEO.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
First of all lets get one thing straight. I live way out of town, cable tv is not even a option and probably will never be. The phone lines a total crap 19200 max speed. I had a direcpc and it did a fairly good job for me. I was offered a beta tester spot with starband about 4 months ago and took it. If you live in the sticks it is a great option. If you have dsl or cable stick with it, if that is not going to be a option then fire up the ole dish and point it south
Got Code?
What scares me the most is the question about wanting to put it on an RV.
Can I do my own installation?
No. A professional installation by a StarBand certified installer is required. Because this is a two-way system - the dish antenna both receives from and transmits to the satellite - the installation must be very precise, and we do not offer the option of self-installs. If you are not a StarBand-certified installer and you perform your own installation or even a portion of the installation, you will void any applicable installation warranty and service warranty.
What is required in a StarBand installation?
The StarBand installation process is very similar to the standard small-dish satellite television installation process, except that it involves a slightly larger antenna and two coaxial cables running from the dish to the computer. In addition, because the StarBand service both sends and receives content via satellite, the dish pointing process requires greater precision, as compared to receive-only satellite television offerings. (See "Can I do my own installation?" above)
I have received my equipment, and I am anxious to get it up and running. Can I go ahead and set up the computer before the installer arrives?
No. We would ask that you leave all of the equipment boxed and wait for the installer to unpack it once he or she arrives. By installing any portion of the system yourself, you will void any applicable installation warranty and service warranty.
Can I mount a StarBand dish antenna on my RV?
Not at this time. Because the StarBand antenna not only receives from but also transmits to the satellite, the installation must be performed with extra precision and in accordance with FCC standards. The installation process requires accurate positioning by the installer of the azimuth, elevation, and skew settings for the antenna, and then a phone call to our Installer Help Desk for additional fine-tuning of these and other settings through tools available only at our satellite uplinking facility.
Are there any applications that will work differently in the StarBand network?
Yes. Certain applications do not perform efficiently in a satellite-delivered environment, such as voice/video over IP, VPN services, certain online interactive games (particularly "shooter" games that depend on split-second responsiveness for the "survival" of the player), and applications that use non-TCP/IP protocols (such as IPX/SPX).
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Winmodems exist BECAUSE THEY'RE CHEAPER. Most of the time the end consumer doesn't know the difference because all they use the computer for is Web surfing (and occasionally word processing)
Do you think the average user is going to pay extra for a hardware-based modem of which will be little apparent benefit?
You see Winmodems in the "$899 with ONE YEAR OF AOL INCLUDED" Dell ads.
The #1 reason isn't Microsoft payoffs but support costs. It costs money to train and/or hire people that can properly support alternate operating systems..And, since Microsoft Windows has a ridiculous share of the desktop market share, it would often cost more for the company to bother supporting an alt-OS than they would make back by sales/fees from the people using alt-OSes.
And..while it seems that a company with common sense should just allow people with alt-OSes to use their products, if possible, and just refuse support, hardly any do this. My guess is they fear that people with unsupported systems will still seek support, and the overhead from driving them away will cost them.
As another poster points out, satellite is only a viable option if you have no other choice. The latency is just too high because of the distance the signal must travel, and no amount of technology is going to change that, unless, of course, we can get around that pesky speed of light. Having said that, my one brief experience with using Starband wasn't that bad. However, when I was telling this to a network tech friend of mine, he said that another tech had looked at the Starband config and found that they are using caching. If true, this would make some amount of sense, since it'd move the data a little closer to the end user. Still, I don't like caching, since you can never be sure if the page you're getting is current. Can anyone out there confirm or deny that this is going on, and, if it is, can a user choose not to use the cache servers?
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
I see a few problems with your comments.
1)Your issue with lack of support.
They provide a servide. They support that service. Try calling Ford about the diesel engine you dropped in your brand new Tarus. I am positive it will no longer be covered in a bumper to bumper waranty.
Just because you want them to provide or support a service does not mean that they do or should have to.
2)The attitude that the help desk should spend his time learning from your call. He has other customers, those staying inside the box that are on hold. He should help them first. Had you called at 4:30 am, it might have been different. Also, if a company thinks it is worth the tech guys time to learn about an alternate way of using them, they would send him to a class.
3)Thee fact that they get paid tons of money.
I imagine that the person is not rolling in the dough as you suggest. If this was a first level tech guy, I am almost positive. Not to knock the job, cause I value good support people, but I don't see it as one of the more desirable jobs, which brings me to my last problem.
4)The negative attitude that they had against you.
I have a feeling from your post, that you may not have handled the situation well, I know you aren't now, it is very negative and bitter. This attitude shows on the phone more than people know.
To summarize, I think you need to take a deep breath, realize that they had a job which they did. Maybe they didn't respond all rosey about the whole thing, but they could of had a long day. Now that you know how to do what you want, do something about it. Put together a reffernce page to tell others how to do what you did, maybe even a HOW-TO. After it is done, and done well, send it along to the support email address for the service provider. Maybe they will add support when they see how easy it is, you never know.
Keep a positive attitude with them, it will help in the long run.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
a builtin USB-->Ethernet adapter
granted, they could have used an external one, (actually i got such a beast with my cable modem a year ago).
but, that's an extra device, more difficoult to use (and just plain annoying: why should i have an extra device when i can have it built in)
the fact that the USB-->Ethernet adapter conflicts with the ethernet-card is bad design (very bad) and thus just plain stupid, but it does not contitute a malicious act.
and not thinking about linux is just short sighted, nothing more.
greetings, eMBee.
--
Gnu is Not Unix / Linux Is Not UniX
Sure it does... in fact, that's why they've done it. Support Costs. They only have to train their market droids / help desk helmets on a few specific systems. I'm not saying its right, but they way they look at it MS has the dominant marketshare so they'll go with Windows. Remember who this is being market to.
Now, if they were really savvy they would have some "this is unofficial and we won't support it, but if you want to hook up to Linux/*BSD/BeOS/MacOS/Atari 800xl here's how you do it / here's a link to someone else who's done it... just don't call us if you have any problems." I would think that would be the least they could do.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Once you've done this modification and voided your warranty, you're SOL when the service gets upgraded and you're left behind. I'm surprised people are willing to do this kind of thing when others are spending all kinds of money to protect their devices.
If I had to choose between spending a thousand dollars on a new device when I broke mine or a thousand dollars on a new windows box I could network to my other computer and run as a gateway, I'd rather choose the latter: at least that way, you get something tangible out of it. Windows may not make a great workstation OS, but it's just fine if you're running some network daemons in the background on it and don't fiddle directly. I've done it just fine.
Read the rest of this comment...
According to the standard formula you'll find on sites like dslreports, I should be running with an RWIN of like 500K (terrible terrible latency averages around 800ms).
From what I've read elsewhere, my experiences aren't unique. With the wild variance of bandwidth you'll see on satellite, with latency swinging from 500ms on the low end up to 1500, the registry tweaks are only going to give moderate increases.
Before anyone jumps on Starband over their support for only Win 98+, have a look at a bit from their rather intelligent FAQ:
"Our Help Desk does not support networking questions and issues, so if you want to try networking with our system, you do so at your own risk, and we recommend that you first make sure that you have access to technical support through other sources. You will be charged by StarBand for any maintenance / repair / support services provided by StarBand due to problems resulting from your networking activities. While we do not yet provide a "StarBand-approved" networking solution, users have done it successfully."
They say "our Help Desk does not support..." Then they say "make sure you have access to technical support through other sources."
It sounds pretty clueful to me. Their Help Desk has enough trouble supporting Win9x, and they certainly don't need to be helping some 15YO with his Mac or Linux problems. (having worked tech support I have some pretty strong opinions.) But they do say networking has been done, and they don't explicitly ban the practice, like many other broadband providers.
What options are there for rural users, though? i.e., so rural you can't even get cable TV, and your address is "Route X, Box YY", and you're about 15 miles away from the nearest town (which only has a population of a couple thousand)? That's where my parents are right now, and they're stuck with a 33.6 modem. Granted, they haven't expressed any desire to upgrade--yet--but someday they might. What's there for them other than satellite?
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Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
they use USB surely to avoid having to add a networkcard to the users pc. considering that all machines come with USB nowadays, but not necessarily with a networkcard, this is a GOOD IDEA.
and it is definetly not their problem that linux USB support is not up to par.
before anyone complains about lacking linux-support by this company, test the USB support in linux first (and then help get it finished)
greetings, eMBee.
--
Gnu is Not Unix / Linux Is Not UniX
The easiest way to quickly boost the performance of your satellite link to is kick up your TCP window maximum segment size (MSS). The MSS determinates the amount of data sent per round trip.
On NT and W9x the MSS defaults to a pathetic 8KB. On Windows 2000 it defaults to 17KB, which is not much better. MS does not provide a documented way to change the MSS using the GUI. However you can hack the registry to boost the MSS to the max (0xFFFF = 65535) for a decent speedup. However, beware of the infamous 64240 byte bug in Windows 2000 and the equally infamous "windo" typo in Windows 98.
Following instructions I initially read about on a Delphi satellite forum (linked somewhere in here), I successfully configured my StarBand reciever at my friend's place using standard ethernet, where he has no cable or landline phone service. He's quite deep in the woods. To make everything worse, his house is located where there is no clear sight to the south, but he did have a tower set up 200 meters away from his house where his HAM repeater/antenna is placed.
So here's what we did: We placed the StarBand dish on the tower, but we needed to get the signal to the house somehow. In the box where all his repeater equipment was housed, we put the 180 in there and hooked it up (via ethernet) to a Lucent WaveLAN transmitter to send the data from the tower to his house. (Thank god there was a line of sight between the antenna and the house in question.) Then, on the recieving end, we hooked up the home WaveLAN antenna/Orinoco card to an OpenBSD server set up as a firewall/wireless bridge (following some instructions we saw somewhere about obsd and WaveLAN) and then networked it using good old RJ-45 to his 3-pc LAN. Yes, he's a total NUT, I've told him that numerous times, but he absolutely wanted internet access at his wood cabin.
And yes, latency is EXTREMELY HORRIBLE at his place. But he has internet access and he's happy.
(Don't ask about the StarBand installer, we just told him to kindly 'buzz off'.)
I've been using DirecPC for the past month and a half, and I'll just say that using satellite should be your last choice, IMHO. Latency is bad enough on one-way, and on two way it basically kills anything other than straight browsing and FTP's. Bandwidth can drop to modem speeds. Do yourself a favor and research the experience of current users before ya take the plunge. If you can get cable or DSL (even at a higher cost), you'll probably be much happier...if you have no other options at all, satellite can be a decent, though often frustrating service.