Firefox display of LinkedIn slow on Fedora 10

[Bill Davidsen]

Michael Eager wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> When I try to open a page on LinkedIn in Firefox or
> Konqueror, it takes forever to display.  Often, the
> session times out before the page is shown.  I have
> not noticed any other sites which have similar problems.
> 
> A Google search shows that a number of people have encountered
> similar problems.  There were conjectures that the problem
> has to do with routers or network settings.  There are a few
> suggestions to reduce the TCP MTU size, and some people
> claimed this fixed their problem.  When I followed these
> suggestions, it doesn't improve display of LinkedIn pages,
> but it did screw up display of other sites.
> 
> On a Windows XP system running under VMware on the same
> hardware, Firefox displays LinkedIn pages with no delay.
> 
> Since the network connection and router is the same,
> it's not a problem with the physical hardware.  Since
> the same problem appears on both Firefox and Konqueror,
> it's not a problem with the browser display engine.
> 
> Anyone have a suggestion how to eliminate this annoyance?
> 
MTU sounds good, the usual "real cause" is some router not passing or honoring 
the "can't fragment" ICMP. If you are running from a VM, behind a tunnel, etc, 
etc, this might be your problem, and since there's a simple solution it's worth 
a try.

Look at the "mss M" section of the "man route" output, and it explains this 
better. Using the route command you can set a route to the problem site, via 
your default router, and only for that route use a smaller MTU. So "mss 1400" 
would be part of the command line.

I learned that so long ago I can't remember details, but the capability is 
there. Let us know if it helps.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot