Slow network, apt-get failing

[Marc Singer <elf@buici.com>]

So far, OK.  I have successfully installed the hurd and built a kernel
with just the drivers I need.  

I'm noticing a couple of anomolies:

  1) I use a Belkin, four port switch box to talk to my different
     machines.  Switching can be done from a button on the front of
     the device, or by quickly pressing  and releasing Ctrl-Alt-Shift
     and the pressing one of the number keys 1-4 to change to that
     CPU.  For some reason, I cannot switch away from the hurd
     console.  Moreover, I am greeted with a message about an
     unexpected key state when pressing the shift key after I've
     attempted to switch.

  2) There is a tulip compatible card in this system connected to a
     local net to the Internet as it passes through an IP masquerading
     gateway.  This works fine for Macs, M$ boxes, and the linux
     hosts I've used for more than a year.  

     On pinging the gateway after bootup, I see a delay of 30 seconds
     or so before the first ICMP packets get through.  Once it works,
     it will start pinging immediately on sumsequent invocations of
     ping--I need to use the -c switch since ping doesn't respond to
     ^C.  I can ftp to the gateway.  I can telnet to ports on the
     gateway.  I cannot use apt-get using a repository on the
     gateway.  The error I get is either

       Socket Expection [sic]

     or it hangs while connecting to the host.  ^C does will terminate
     apt-get, though sometimes not immediately.


I'd like to write some experimental servers, but this is predicated on
me being able to share files between hosts.

- Marc