What's the best pci network adapter for Linux? (in an ideal world...)

jb1140 · 09-03-2001, 10:21 AM

I've tried Caldera e2.4, RH7.1 and am about to try Mandrake 8.0 - none of these dists on an HP Pavillion 9694 work with the Netgear FA311 card - in fact no one seems to say anything good about this card.

I've installed hundreds of 3Com 3C509 cards in the past for DOS/Win pc's and servers, and they've always been reliable and easy to troubleshoot.

So, for Linux, what would be *YOUR* choice for (1) ease of installation (2) reliability and (3) performance?

Thanks,

JB

trickykid · 09-03-2001, 03:25 PM

probably the most compatible is 3com. either that or i have never had any problems with linksys nics.

acid_kewpie · 09-03-2001, 04:04 PM

My experience of NIC's is fairly short, but they fall into two categories:

RTL8139 PCI's - No problems ever ever ever (4 cards)

3COM 3C509 ISA's - No Success ever ever ever! (8 cards)

RecoilUK · 09-04-2001, 03:34 PM

Hi there

I just purchased two Allied Telesyn AT-2500 cards which have the rtl8139 chip in them and they work great. One in my linux box and the other in WIN ME, only £15 each to.

My advice is by some cheap one,s but before you hand over your cash, ask them to open the box and have a look for a chip with 8139 written on it.

L8rs

RecoilUK

acid_kewpie · 09-04-2001, 04:28 PM

£15? bloody 'ell you were conned.

http://www.eclipse-computers.com generic ethernnet card, £8.23 ... less than 2 miles from my bedroom :-)

drjimstuckinwin · 09-04-2001, 06:53 PM

Hi
It's been said many times...
Use the natsemi dp83810 driver in the 2.4 kernels and the fa311 works faultlessly. OK you need to recompile, but it's cheaper than getting new cards. I've installed RH 7.0 on my desktop about 20 times (bungling fool that I am) and it never detected the card during install, just set it up after. WHen I installed RH7 on my laptop, the NIC wasn't found on install (netgear fa410tx), typed netconfig once and away we went!It may seem that the card will never work, but if you search the boards here you'll find fixes for every distro imaginable.
Jim

ascii2k · 09-05-2001, 10:45 AM

My 2cents worth of advice is "Stay away from Netgear cards." I've had trouble using them with Linux AND Windows." Now I use Linksys almost exclusively although 3com seems to work too. You can get a Linksys LNE100TX for $20. Sometimes less if they are on sale.