Subject: Re: Recommendations for NIC
To: Ben Collver <collver@peak.org>
From: Timo Schoeler <timo.schoeler@riscworks.net>
List: port-i386
Date: 02/04/2006 15:20:46
thus Ben Collver spake:
> On Sat, Feb 04, 2006 at 03:01:13PM +0100, Timo Schoeler wrote:
> 
>>thus Abhi spake:
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>   I'm using NetBSD 3.0 on a P3 box, and i'm thinking of buying a NIC
>>>for it. Can anybody suggest me some NICs?
>>
>>of course this depends on your needs, but if you are willing to pay a 
>>/bit/ more and save you a lot of trouble, go for NICs with intel 
>>chipset. cards with realtek chipset are not the way to go, e.g.
> 
> 
> I have had good luck with Intel and Broadcom chipsets.
> 
> However, I have seen NetBSD fail to recognize Intel gigE chipsets that
> are listed in the man page as supported.  They don't even show up in
> dmesg nor pcictl, so it may have something to do with PCI-express.
> 
> I've used realtek NICs with no trouble, but not in servers.
> 
> The NICs that have given me the most trouble have been 3com, though I've
> heard their equipment has a good reputation.
> 
> Ben

i once had a server at a customer site which i converted from running 
Mac OS X to NetBSD/macppc. it had a second NIC (realtek). as soon as it 
had to handle bigger files (1GByte*) i saw problems with it. as it was 
connected to a managed switch of good quality it was nearly clear that 
it was the NIC; i changed it for an intel based NIC and the trouble went 
away.

cheers,

-- 
Timo Schoeler | http://riscworks.net/~tis | timo.schoeler@riscworks.net
RISCworks -- Perfection is a powerful message
ISP | POWER & PowerPC afficinados | Networking, Security & BSD services
GPG Key fingerprint = B5F6 68A4 EC45 C309 6770  38C4 50E8 2740 9E0C F20A
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary 
and those who don't.