right now i have a hub and am looking to upgrade.

Ok well i heard in windows when you set it to "full duplex" you get max of about 9 mbps actual.

would i get the samespeed in linux ? and how would i be able to set it to "full duplex" in linux?(mandrake)

another question:

what is this i see ......some swithces say full bandwith of upto 200mbps?

"Each of its independently switched 10/100 ports yield
up to a remarkable 200Mbps bandwidth in full duplex mode, and
protect your PCs from downed network segments through
auto-parti-tioning."

-- some ebay auction.

full duplex refers to simultaneous send and receive, 100mbps each direction. get a switch instead of a hub; the hub distributes the bandwidth between all ports and a switch gives full bandwidth to each. i used to get <10% theo bandwidth between 98 boxes with cat5 cables and a hub. now i get >90% throughput between my NT box and linux server with a 12 port superstackII switch i bought off ebay for $80. 98 never seemed to network well (quickly) for me.

and whats this 200mbps stufF>

100mbps sent from me to you + 100mbps sent from you to me = 200mbps sent simultaneously. 100mbps each way. nobody gets 200 mbps on a 100baseT setup. but, for $40 each i'd go with 1000baseT cards that operate on cat5 cable. that'll beat the 200 you're looking for. now you're looking at exensive switches/hubs though. but it's cheap for 2 machines with a cross cable and no hub.

perhaps a better method of achieving 200mbps on a 100mbps network is to consult the marketing department of your favorite networking hardware manufacturer.

If you don't want to go the the expense of buying 1000Mbit NICs/Switches, but you want >100Mbits connection, you could check out using multiple NICs in each machine.