Mageia forum

Using a 2.8 MHz Pentium 4 on a wired DSL line, I started a direct download of the 32-bit DVD at about 2 AM local time, then I went to bed. Seven hours later I arise to find the download only 40 percent complete. I wonder why. This computer has a new 2TB drive running Windows XP in one of four partitions, so there is plenty of room for a fresh Mageia install to replace the Mageia over Mandriva over Mandrake installation of the previous drive. Parenthetically, I will mention that the fresh XP installation on this drive did not recognize the Ethernet port built into the motherboard. Lacking a way to download a driver for it, I took a Linksys network card from an older Pentium box, installed it as a second Ethernet port, with the result that XP recognized it and allowed Internet connectivity. The Mandrake to Mageia genealogy had no such difficulty recognizing a built-in Ethernet port, or using it at considerably faster download rates. On another hand, I do wonder whether other system events of the last three weeks have resulted in lower average download speeds regardless of receiving equipment characteristics. Glancing at the DVD download percentage, I see it is still less than 50 percent, so I will pour a cup of fresh coffee and attend to my university coursework while bits travel circuits.

Maybe just try with another mirror? Which one are you currently using? Also you forgot to tell how fast the download speed of your DSL line is ...

I did not choose a specific mirror; I just chose the direct DVD download from the Mageia download page, so I don't know which mirror is now active. I haven't tested the download speed recently here, but in the past this system has achieved rates close to 3.0 Mbit/sec, whereas this particular download is proceeding between 90 to 130 KB/sec, according to the download application window. I will mention that there are a couple of universities locally with just under 30,000 students between them, and when they are both in session, as they are now, download speeds even over a DSL line, not a cable line, can be reduced. I thought that with a DSL line I would be insulated from shared cable subscriber rate fluctuations, but apparently the regional area can be affected when one compares the vacationing student summertime versus the in-session student wintertime. Though it is somewhat frustrating to notice differences between expected and actual download speeds, it is a little scary to think about how dependent we have become on all of this electronic connectivity operating correctly just to get our various kinds of daily work accomplished.

Did you read the text on the download page after you clicked the download link? Here's an example after selecting the KDE live cd, and it uses a german mirror.

Download Mageia 1

Your download of KDE should start within a few seconds (download size is about 700 MB). If the download does not start, click here.

This ftp.uni-erlangen.de download mirror is located in Deutschland (DE). If it does not work well for you, check out these other mirrors.

The bold part is a link which would allow you to restart the download, from another mirror.