[ale] Linksys cards supported?

[Geoffrey Myers]

Ben Coleman wrote:

> On Sat, 29 Nov 1997 23:58:44 -0500, Geoffrey Myers wrote:
>
> >I have the 'opportunity' to purchase a  LinkSys 'Network in a Box'
> >package at a pretty good price.  Basically it contains two '32bit
> >EtherPCI Lan Card II Adapters.'  I checked out the Ethernet-HOWTO to see
> >if these cards were supported.  The HOWTO lists a couple of LinkSys
> >cards but says there's too many to list them all.  Anyone know if these
> >things will work with Linux?
>
> Sometimes it pays to check out the vendor's web pages.  According the the
> Linksys tech support pages(see
> http://www.linksys.com/support/solution/nos/linux.htm), the EtherPCI II
> LAN Card should work the with the NE2000 driver, but it requires a kernel
> of 2.1.15 or higher.

I appreciate the URL, I did check out their web site, but never stumbled
across this link.  Regarding the requirement of 2.1.15 kernel, I know there's
the 2.1.* kernels and the 2.0.* kernels.  I know the 2.1.* kernels are move
advanced and less tested then the 2.0.* kernels.  The question is, how do
I map the 2.1.15 requirement to the 2.0.* kernel?  That is, do I have to be
running a 2.1.* kernel equal to or greater than 2.1.15 or is there some way
to determine how this maps to the 2.0.* kernels?  I'm currently running
2.0.32, and would think that updates made to the 2.1.15 kernel would have
made it into the 2.0.* kernels by 2.0.32.

The busmastering issues bothers me although all I plan on doing at this point
would be printing from one machine to the other via the network.  There also
would be some very small Internet activity across it.  The URL you provided
above provides a link to another page that has info on PCI NE2000 clones.  It
starts off by saying, don't buy them and that they really eat up CPU when
transfering at full speed.  Me thinks I need to look at some other cards....

>
>
> You might want to note that the EtherPCI II cards don't do bus-mastering,
> which to my mind loses part of the advantage of the PCI bus.  If you think
> you'll be driving the network very hard, it might be something to think
> about.  Note that the Linksys EtherPCI LAN cards(note no II) _do_ do
> bus-mastering, and according to the Linksys tech support pages, should run
> with the Tulip driver with kernel 1.3.57 or higher.
>
> I do have one of the EtherPCI cards, but can't say how it runs under
> Linux(that machine runs OS/2, and my Linux box is an old 386/25).  I found
> them at Computer City about a month and a half ago for $60, and got Micro
> Center to match the price for me.  You might be able to find better prices
> via mail-order(my DatacommMall(http://www.datacommmall.com) catalog
> appears to show the EtherPCI for $49, but you might want to double-check
> and make sure that's not the II).
>
> Ben
> --
> Ben Coleman NJ8J                     | The attempt to legislatively
> Internet: bcoleman at mindspring.com    | micromanage equality results, at
> http://bcoleman.home.mindspring.com/ | best, in equal misery for all.



--
Until later: Geoffrey           geof at abraxis.com