I need more comments/suggestions -- Re: Intel Pro 100+ Dual Port Server Adapter

[Bryan -TheBS- Smith]

On Thu, 02 Mar 2000, Jerry Glomph Black wrote:
> We have used it; it looks to Linux like two separate cards.
> No problems at all.

Is that the i82558 or i82559 chip?

I am good friends with Mark Matthews (lives ~10 miles away) and
was over hacking with him last night.  He guess it was the i82558
chip before I even told him anything.  His comment was that "Intel
does not document it well, which results in Intel not telling
people things about the chip until its a well-known problem."

Did Intel fix a bit between the 82558 and 82559?  I thought the
later was just for wake on LAN (WOL) support?  E.g.:

  i82556:  EEPro/100[A]   (these guys suck, unsupported in Linux)
  i82557:  EEPro/100B     (I have these, excellent cards IMHO!)
  i82558:  EEPro/100+     (First experience, a bad one too)
  i82559:  EEPro/100+ WOL (Have several, no problems)

The Becker eepro100 driver, again, supports the 82557, 82558 and
82559.  The Intel e100 driver supports only (select?) 82558 and
(all?) 82559 cards (no i82557).  No one supports the older i82556
(which I find has trouble with PCI 2.1/2.2 systems).

I was, more or less, wondering if anyone had tried the official
Intel e100 driver and compared it to Becker's established eepro100
driver.

The point may be moot anyway, the Linksys LNE100TX (Tulip variant)
I have in my server now seems to be working fine.  Just concerned
that, compared to the EEPro/100s, it may be:
  A.  More CPU intensive on high loads (common on my network)
  B.  Less capable throughput (possibly combined with A?)

Comments?  Suggestions?

Thanx in advance ...

-- Bryan J. Smith
   Theseus Logic

P.S.  Comments, suggestions on Gigabit cards???  I was looking at
the low-cost NetGear 620 (~$300) and the EEPro/1000 (~$600).  My
switches are Intel EEStack 510Ts, and I would be adding the SX
module to them (~$700).

P.S.S.  I usually RTFM, but can you use that dual-port card on the
same subnet, even same IP?  The EEStack 510T supports 802.1d (tree
spanning protocol) so I was wondering if I could combine such a
card (or two single port ones) to increase bandwidth (let alone
redundancy)?

-- 
 Bryan "TheBS" Smith -- Engineer, IT Professional and Hacker
      E-mail:  mailto:thebs@theseus.com,b.j.smith@ieee.org
  Disclaimer:  http://www.SmithConcepts.com/legal.html
*************************************************************
  TheBS ... Serving E-mail filters to /dev/null since 1989

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