Re: cheap NICs

[Tobias Diedrich <ranma@example.com>]

Hector Akamine wrote:

> How good is the support for "cheap" network cards in linux? We plan to
> buy a new PC, and initially thought to use a 3COM card, but with cards
> with less than one-third of the price (Corega, Netgear, Planex, I/O Data)
> (prices from tzone.com) I think in giving any one of them a chance.

It depends on the card's chipset.
The most often used one is the realtek chipset AFAIK (rtl8139).
I have a few cards with these and had no trouble so far.
Maybe you can ask at the store which chipset is used on the card.
Or look at the drivers from the manufactures website.
The realtek windows drivers are usually called rtl8139.sys or something
like that, so if the driver is named like that it should be a
realtek chipset. ^_^
In fact I have had more trouble with a more expensive (delink) card with a
decchip/tulip chipset:
There are two kernel drivers working with this card, but only one 
works reliable.

-- 
Tobias							     PGP-Key: 0x9AC7E0BC
echo ${SIGNATURE}