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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."
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.
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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.