Re: real kernel bloat

Andrew E. Mileski (aem@nic.ott.hookup.net)
Thu, 27 Jun 1996 16:03:31 -0400 (EDT)


> When ping says 20% packet dropout you should be firing the network manager
> or whoever refused to buy better links ;) 2.0 should be better than 1.2, but
> above about 10% the error correction scheme used by a TCP (ack frames)
> really breaks down badly.
>
> Alan

I do hope everbody knows using ping this way doesn't mean much unless
you send say 100 packets or more. Heck, having 1 packet dropped out of
a 5 packet test is 20%, but not an adequate statistic. Running a network
for a full day or longer of normal activity, and finding 20% loss would
be a cause for alarm.

I'm reminded of a Toronto Blue Jays rookie who stepped up to the
plate recently - the announcers mentioned his "Godly batting average"
of 1.000 (up to bat only once, and got a hit) :-) Meanwhile, their
best seasoned hitters score under 0.400

And another thing, a busy remote server can ignore a ping.

--
Andrew E. Mileski
mailto:aem@ott.hookup.net      My home page http://www.redhat.com/~aem/
Linux Plug-and-Play Project Leader. See URL http://www.redhat.com/pnp/

Red Hat Software sponsors these pages - I have no other affilitation with Red Hat Software, and I have never used any of their products.