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Re: hints on SMC network cards



hwilmer said:

> how are your experiences with network cards from SMC, like the ´SMC1244TX
> V.2´? I´m a bit confused wheather a driver/module is included in standard
> kernels (2.4.20+) or if a decent driver is available at all.

haven't used this specific card but have used several SMC Realtek 8139
based cards and they all worked good.

> What´s supplied by SMC points me to
> http://www.scyld.com/network/tulip.html, and that page claims that the
> driver is included in standard kernels as a Tulip driver, though I
> couldn´t  find it there. Instead, menuconfig has an entry for SMC cards.

tulip is in there, I think it's listed as

DECchip Tulip (dc21x4x) PCI support

>
> Also, I wonder if SMC would be a good choice for building an internet
> router/firewall and such.

not sure on their tulip stuff but the realtek stuff works fine for me,
my SMC cards are about 4 years old at the moment.

> Or should I better try to get hold of some 3com 3c905? Those work just out
>  of the box, but the SMCs seem to be faster.

3com is good too, and the default config of the 3coms is quite a bit
slower(I think there is a setting you can tweak), last time I tested
3C905B(3 years ago) I could get max of 5-6MByte/s, while a Realtek or
eepro card on the same system using the same cable/switch could get
10-11MByte/s. I still do like & use 3com cards though, prefer them
over the others, 5-6Mbyte/s is more then enough for my needs on most
systems, and as above I think there is a module paramter or kernel
option to flip which makes the card work at full speed(perhaps this
is the default these days I haven't done any performance testing of
the 3COM card since that one time 3 years ago)

nate





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