What are some Linux-Friendly NICs?

wondershowzen · 06-25-2005, 09:20 PM

I've got to get a new NIC, what are some that are Linux-Friendly?

fatrandy13 · 06-25-2005, 09:44 PM

i have a dlink 220 isa pnp nic....works great

i had to disable the pnp aspect and specify the irq number when loading the driver, but besides that, it has worked flawlessly.

teckk · 06-25-2005, 09:46 PM

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/index.php
http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/

Most 10/100 Mbps PCI cards or on-board NICs work with Linux or BSD

For Wi-Fi you have a smaller selection. Although the ones that are not supporting Linux can be made to work with the windows .inf file and ndswrapper.

Harlin · 06-25-2005, 11:05 PM

3com is supported by everyone damn near

WhatsHisName · 06-26-2005, 12:34 AM

The SysKonnect gigabit NICs (SK-95xx, SK-98xx, SK-9Exx, SK-9Exx and SK-9Sxx) work very well, support jumbo frames and tend to be affordable (see http://syskonnect.com/syskonnect/pro..._ethernet.html ).

Lim45 · 06-26-2005, 02:02 AM

Many of the cheaper cards are based on the Realtek RTL8139 chipset, and these will work perfectly with just about any distro you care to name. I use "Mercury" branded NICs in three machines here, and they've never given a moment's trouble despite being the cheapest I could find.

Harlin · 06-26-2005, 04:03 AM

If you want cheap then RealTek is the way to go. Avoid Tulip (cheap but very crappy).

trickykid · 06-26-2005, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Harlin
If you want cheap then RealTek is the way to go. Avoid Tulip (cheap but very crappy).

And to clarify, usually Linksys cards use the tulip module. And from my experience, these cards actually worked great if Linksys stopped creating new upgrades with different chipsets with each version of the NIC's but keeping the same model number with them... I have about 4 of these cards that work great in Linux using older versions of the kernel but they aren't worth two cents with later versions of the kernel or the tulip driver..

deoren · 06-26-2005, 07:55 AM

Thanks for the info trickykid! I didn't realize that the tulip driver was focused towards Linksys cards; I'll make sure to buy RealTek based cards or stick with 3Com.

wondershowzen · 06-26-2005, 11:58 AM

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1051384161297 This thing is nice and cheap, good buy?

I'm gonna head by Best Buy and pick one up, thanks guys!

Mara · 06-26-2005, 12:31 PM

If you think about non-wireless ones, nearly all work correctly from first try. I have tried many in different machines and never had a problem.

Harlin · 06-26-2005, 01:39 PM

Quote:

I have about 4 of these cards that work great in Linux using older versions of the kernel but they aren't worth two cents with later versions of the kernel or the tulip driver..

-Trickykid

And there you are... I remember around Mandrake 8.1 and before I thought I had discovered something with the very inexpensive (now just plain cheap

) linksys nics that you could find at Wal-Mart for under 20USD. I know I recommended these to many friends and they followed suit. After a while I noticed that they didn't work -- I thought maybe support was dropped for these things. Now it's good to know why that was. Thanks.