multiload applet shows network upload speed that is inaccurate

[buynada]

when transfering a file from local to remote host via eth0, rcp shows a transfer speed of 4MB/s. Checking /proc/net/dev confirms a transfer speed of about 5MB/s, and calculating the transfer rate from the ETA and filesize confirms a transfer rate of about 4 megabytes / second. However, when rolling the mouse over the network window of the gnome system monitor shows a speed of about 1/5-1/10 of that reported by /proc and rcp (or scp) of about 500 KB/s.

gnome-system-monitor version 2.28.1-1ubuntu1 on Ubuntu 10.10

thanks,
Peter
---
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Netbook 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429.4)
Package: gnome-system-monitor 2.28.2-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-11.48-generic 2.6.38.8
Tags: natty
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-11-generic i686
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-07-17 (54 days ago)
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout fuse lpadmin plugdev sambashare

[Lukasz Olszewski (olszewskil)]

Are you sure you're using the right units? I mean are you sure it's 4MB/s and not 4Mb/s? gnome-system-monitor uses KB/s so 500KB/s = 4000Kb/s so pretty close to 4Mb/s...
If you're sure you used the right units please provide more info about your hardware ( lspci -vv ) and also please run:
apport-collect 845775
from terminal.

[buynada (peter-laneta)]

apport information

[buynada (peter-laneta)]

I think the math is right, furthermore my original comment was about the roll-over tool tip. When I open the monitor the rate is accurate but it does not match the tooltip. See attached screenshot for evidence.

[Lukasz Olszewski (olszewskil)]

OK Peter, please attach some more information about your hardware:
lspci -vv
lsusb -vv
and also your dmesg log. Thanks!

[Dmitri Bachtin (damg)]

Thank you very much for filing this report and making Ubuntu better!

It used to be that a megabyte was 1024 kilobytes and a kilobyte used to be 1024 bytes. Nowadays a mibibyte is 1024 kibibytes and a kibibyte is 1024 bytes. On the other side a megabyte is nowadays 1000 kilobytes and a kilobyte is 1024 bytes. If you will look at your screenshot, you will notice that the shell refers to MB (megabytes) and g-s-m refers to MiB (mibibytes).

The shell reports 4.6 MB/s. That is (4,6 * 1000 * 1000) / (1024 * 1024) ~= 4,4 MiB/s.

Technically, both applications are right and therefore I have to mark this entry as Invalid. It will take time until one of the conventions to define size will win.

In spite of that, please proceed contributing to Ubuntu. The only thing I can offer is a laugh: the good old 1.44 MB floppy storage size consists of 1.44*1024*1000 bytes ;)

If the root of the differences between the values isn't due to MB and MiB, feel free to reopen this ticket.

[Kyle Guilbert (kguilbert)]

Dmitri, did you look carefully at the OP's screenshot? Look at the tooltip on GSM. It says "Sending 1.7 MB/s". This is what he reporting on, NOT the difference between the main GSM window and the shell.

[buynada (peter-laneta)]

Thanks Kyle, Dmitri, that is correct, I am referring to the tooltip and the main window not matching. 1.6MB != 4.4MB regardless of whether using 1024 or 1000 bytes per KB, etc.

Until recently I had only used the tooltip to track my network usage. When I confirmed it with the transfer window I saw it was off. When I checked it against the network monitor window I saw it also did not match.

Many other users may just use the tooltip, so it would be helpful if the tooltip was accurate.

I'm new to posting bugs here so I have remarked confirmed, but please update if I was not supposed to do that.

thanks,
Peter

[Robert Roth (evfool)]

As the component displaying the panel load applet is the multiload component of the gnome-applets package, I am reassigning this bug to the gnome-applets package.