[Pan-users] Re: Connections

[Duncan]

Ronny Hippler posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Sat, 04 Oct 2003 14:26:34 -0400:

> I am using pan under freeBSD and have it set up for a maximum of 3
> connections to giganews. When downloading binaries it will only use one
> thread at a time. It will be downloading one article then it will start
> a second but stop around 2%. Once the first is done the second will
> continue where it left off. Then it will try to start a 2nd, again
> stopping at around 2%. According to the log I have three connections
> open but it only uses one for binary decoding. Is there some sort of
> limitation that is causing this?

This is a very common misunderstanding of the way PAN, thru gnet, is
handling things.  If you have a connection faster than you are allowed to
d/l with a single connection, and you look at bandwidth usage, it becomes
apparent that PAN is using multiple connections.  What's going on is that
since the switch to gnet, it puts all the connections available to work on
the highest priority task, as long as there are more parts on that task to
d/l.  Occasionally, however, it starts a second part, when it can't get
another part of the current task immediately, rather than holding a
connection idle until it can.  That's where those odd 2%s come from.  It
starts the task, downloading a part or two, then goes back to the other
task higher on the list when it can get at those parts.

Example:  I have a 3Mbps cable modem connection here.  My ISP has three
servers, each of which I can connect to with four connections, each of
which is capped @ 384kbps.  Therefore, if all four connections to a server
are running, my maximum bandwidth usage is 1.5Mbps to that server (384kbps
per connection times four connections).  When I start a d/l, I can watch
the first connect, then the second, third, and fourth, all the while
showing only one task being worked on, but my bandwidth usage jumping
according to the connections being used on it.

(If I want, I can then switch to a different server and do the same there
to fill up my 3Mbps bandwidth, but I don't very often, as 1.5 does it for
my use, and still leaves bandwidth free for other uses if I should so
desire.)

> On another note how do I make new article headers not show up as bold
> w/out getting new headers twice in a row. I find the bold harder to read
> over a vnc connection. TIA

I believe that's hard coded into the distributed source.  You could of
course patch it, and recompile, but a simpler solution might be to change
the font for the overview (aka header, tho that's technically incorrect)
pane in prefs to something a bit easier to read, and/or where bold is the
same as normal/roman face.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
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