Download speeds suck compared to Windows.
I wanted to download a few games on Steam, but unfortunately one thing immediately caught my attention in a very negative way: the download speeds are terrible.
Most of the time I get around 10–15 Mbps, at best 40 Mbps, and at worst even 1–2 Mbps. I tried closing background apps and restarting my network connection, but nothing helped.
Compared to Windows 11, where I get a stable 100 Mbps with no drops at all, this is a huge difference. I’m using an Ethernet connection, and the problem is not only with Steam — the whole system feels slow. Even browsing the internet, updating packages, and downloading through the terminal is painfully slow.
I originally thought Steam was the problem, but it turns out the whole system has weirdly bad download speeds on Linux.
What is strange is that after running "sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager", my speeds are normal again for about a minute, and then they suddenly drop to below 1 Mbps.
I already tried switching between "r8168" and "r8169", but that did not help.
I also tried "dnsmasq", but with no success.
I experimented with a few "ethtool" settings as well, but that did not fix it either.
I also tried some config-file changes, but those did not solve the issue either.
I am using Ethernet, and the problem is not only on Steam — browsing, updates, and downloads through the terminal are all affected.
Below I will include speed tests from Linux and Windows, download speed comparisons, and a video showing the command that temporarily changes something.