Subject: Linux Ethernet HOWTO (part 1/2) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.os.linux.admin,comp.answers,news.answers,comp.dcoms.lan.ethernet,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking,aus.computers.linux From: Paul Gortmaker Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 17:03:01 GMT Archive-Name: linux/howto/ethernet/part1 Last-modified: 20 Oct 94 Linux Ethernet-Howto Paul Gortmaker, Editor. v2.0, 18/10/94 This is the Ethernet-Howto, which is a compilation of information about which ethernet devices can be used for Linux, and how to set them up. It hopefully answers all the frequently asked questions about using ethernet cards with Linux. Note that this Howto is focused on the hardware and low level driver aspect of the ethernet cards, and does not cover the software end of things. See the NET2-Howto for that stuff. 1. Introduction The Ethernet-Howto covers what cards you should and shouldn't buy; how to set them up, how to run more than one, and other common problems and questions. It contains detailed information on the current level of support for all of the most common ethernet cards available. It does *not* cover the software end of things, as that is covered in the NET-2 Howto. The Ethernet-Howto is edited and maintained by: Paul Gortmaker, Paul.Gortmaker@anu.edu.au The primary source of the information for the Ethernet-Howto is from: Donald J. Becker, becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov who we have to thank for writing the vast majority of ethernet card drivers that are presently available for Linux. He also is the original author of the NFS server too. Thanks Donald! We we owe ya one! :-) Net-surfers may wish to check out the following URL: Donald Becker (http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/people/becker/whoiam.html) 1.1. Using the Ethernet-Howto As this guide is getting bigger and bigger, you probably don't want to spend the rest of your afternoon reading the whole thing. And you don't *have* to read it all. If you haven't got an ethernet card, then you will want to start with ``What card should I buy...'' to see what you should buy, and what you should avoid. If you have already got an ethernet card, but are not sure if you can use it with Linux, then you will want to read ``Vendor Specific...'' which contains specific information on each manufacturer, and their cards. If you are having trouble with your card, then you will want to read the specific information about your card mentioned above, and the troubleshooting information in ``the FAQ section''. If you are interested in some of the technical aspects of the device drivers, then you can find that information in ``Technical Information'' 1.2. Disclaimer and Copyright This document is *not* gospel. However, it is probably the most up to date info that you will be able to find. Nobody is responsible for what happens to your hardware but yourself. If your ethercard or any other hardware goes up in smoke (...nearly impossible!) we take no responsibility. ie. THE AUTHORS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES INCURRED DUE TO ACTIONS TAKEN BASED ON THE INFORMATION INCLUDED IN THIS DOCUMENT. This document is Copyright (c) 1994 by Donald Becker and Paul Gortmaker. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this document under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that this copyright notice is included exactly as in the original, and that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this document into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions. If you are intending to incorporate this document into a published work, please contact me, and I will make an effort to ensure that you have the most up to date information available. In the past, out of date versions of the Linux howto documents have been published, which caused the developers undue grief from being plagued with questions that were already answered in the up to date versions. 1.3. Mailing Lists and the Linux Newsgroups If you have questions about your ethernet card, please READ this document first. You may also want to join the NET channel of the Linux-activists mailing list by sending mail to linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi with the line X-Mn-Admin: join NET at the top of the message body (not the subject). If you want to learn how to use the mailing channels, then send an empty message to the above address, and you will get an instruction manual sent back to you in a few hours. However, it is worth noting that the NET channel is primarily used for discussion of the networking code, and you may not see much discussion about a particular driver. Furthermore keep in mind that the NET channel is for development discussions only. General questions on how to configure your system should be directed to comp.os.linux.help unless you are actively involved in the development of part of the networking for Linux. We ask that you *please* respect this general guideline for content. Also, you can safely bet that most people will not respond to any plea for help that *should* be posted to c.o.l.help, but is inappropriately placed elsewhere. 1.4. Related Documentation Much of this info came from saved postings from the comp.os.linux groups, which shows that it is a valuable resource of information. Other useful information came from a bunch of small files by Donald himself. Of course, if you are setting up an Ethernet card, then you will want to read the NET-2 Howto so that you can actually configure the software you will use. And last but not least, the contributions from the individuals and companies listed in ``Contributors'' is greatly appreciated as well. Oh yeah, if you fancy yourself as a bit of a hacker, you can always scrounge some additional info from the driver source files as well. There is usually a paragraph in there describing any important points. 1.5. New Versions of this Document New versions of this document can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from sunsite.unc.edu, in /pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/* and various Linux ftp mirror sites. Updates will be made as new information / drivers becomes available. If this copy that you are reading is more than 2 months old, it is either out of date, or it means that I have been lazy and haven't updated it. This document was produced by using the SGML system that was specifically set up for the Linux Howto project, and there are various output formats available, including, postscript, dvi, ascii, html, and soon TeXinfo. I would recommend viewing it in the html (via Mosaic) or the Postscript/dvi format. Both of these contain cross-references that are lost in the ascii translation. 2. What card should I buy for Linux? For impatient users that just want a quick, cheap answer the summary is: get 16 bit thinnet 8013 cards. For those who want the absolute best performance, get an AMD PC-Net/Lance based card. For more detail as to the who what where and why, read on. 2.1. Eight bit vs 16 bit Unless you are a light user, or are confined to using the smaller ISA slot, the use of the 8 bit cards like the wd8003, the 3c503 and the ne1000 is really not worth the cost savings. Get the 8013 or the 3c503/16, or the ne2000 instead. 2.2. Low price Ethernet cards The lowest price seen so far was in the March '94 edition of LAN magazine. There was an ad for Addtron AE-200 cards (jumper settable NE2000 clones) for a measly $19 ea! (limit 2). Unfortunately this offer has since expired. However, you might want to check to see what their everyday price is. You can also call AT-LAN-TEC at 301-948-7070. Ask for their technical support person, Vincent Bono. As with all purchases, you should indicate you are buying this for a Linux system. NB: Their current NE2000 clone is a model that `traps' other drivers that probe into their address space. AT-LAN-TEC also carries a clone, non-EEPROM 8013 board for somewhat more, and a NE2100 clone. Either is a better choice if the very lowest price isn't essential. Also, SMC has been offering an evaluation deal on their new Ultra cards, and the word is that you can get one for $50. You can ask them yourself by calling the numbers listed in ``Western Digital / SMC''. And a recent addition is the VLB and PCI cards offered by Boca Research. These are selling for around the $70 mark, and these are supported with the latest kernel. These use the new 32 bit versions of the LANCE chip from AMD. See ``Boca Research'' for more info. If you require an ISA card, you can use the the Allied Telesis AT1500 which uses the ISA version of the LANCE chip from AMD. It is offered at a good price by many vendors. Even Inmac, known for their premium markup, has this card for under $100. See ``AT-1500'' for more info. 2.3. Vendors and Brands to Avoid These vendors have decided *not* to release programming information about their products, without signing a NDA (non-disclosure agreement). Hence it is strongly advised that you avoid buying products offered from these companies. (1) Cabletron (see ``Cabletron'') (2) Xircom (see ``Xircom'') These particular cards should be avoided, as they are obsolete. The reasons as to why they have been classified as such can be found in their respective sections. (1) 3c501 (see ``3Com 3c501'') (2) Arcnet based cards (see ``Arcnet'') (3) Any 8-bit cards (see ``Eight bit...'') 2.4. Type of cable that your card should support Unless you have to conform to an existing network, you will want to use thinnet or thin ethernet cable. This is the style with the standard BNC connectors. See ``cable info'' for other concerns with different types of ethernet cable. Most ethercards also come in a `Combo' version for only $10-$20 more. These have both twisted pair and thinnet transceiver built-in, allowing you to change your mind later. The twisted pair cables, with the RJ-45 (giant phone jack) connectors is technically called 10Base-T. You may also hear it called UTP (Unsheilded Twisted Pair). The thinnet, or thin ethernet cabling, (RG-58 coaxial cable) with the BNC (metal push and turn-to-lock) connectors is technically called 10Base-2. The older thick ethernet (10mm coaxial cable) which is only found in older installations is called 10Base-5. Large corporate installations will most likely use 10Base-T instead of 10Base-2. 10Base-2 does not offer an easy upgrade path to the new upcoming 100Base-whatever. 3. Vendor/Manufacturer/Model Specific Information The only thing that one needs to use an ethernet card with Linux is the appropriate driver. For this, it is essential that the manufacturer will release the technical programming information to the general public without you (or anyone) having to sign your life away. A good guide for the likelihood of getting documentation (or, if you aren't writing code, the likelihood that someone else will write that driver you really, really need) is the availability of the Crynwr (nee Clarkson) packet driver. Russ Nelson runs this operation, and has been very helpful in supporting the development of drivers for Linux. Net- surfers can try this URL to look up Russ' software. Russ Nelson's Packet Drivers (http://www.crynwr.com/crynwr/home.html) Given the documentation, you can write a driver for your card and use it for Linux, at least in theory. Keep in mind that some old hardware that was designed for XT type machines will not function very well in a multitasking environment such as Linux. Use of these will lead to major problems if your network sees a reasonable amount of traffic. Most cards come with drivers for MS-DOS interfaces such as NDIS and ODI, but these are useless for Linux. Many people have suggested directly linking them in or automatic translation, but this is nearly impossible. The MS-DOS drivers expect to be in 16 bit mode and hook into `software interrupts', both incompatible with the Linux kernel. This incompatibility is actually a feature, as some Linux drivers are considerably better than their MS-DOS counterparts. The `8390' series drivers, for instance, use ping-pong transmit buffers, which are only now being introduced in the MS-DOS world. Keep in mind that PC ethercards have the widest variety of interfaces (shared memory, programmed I/O, bus-master, or slave DMA) of any computer hardware for anything, and supporting a new ethercard sometimes requires re-thinking most of the lower-level networking code. (If you are interested in learning more about these different forms of interfaces, see ``Programmed I/O vs. ...''. Also, similar product numbers don't always indicate similar products. For instance, the 3c50* product line from 3Com varies wildly between different members. Enough talk. Let's get down to the information you want. 3.1. 3Com If you are not sure what your card is, but you think it is a 3Com card, you can probably figure it out from the assembly number. 3Com has a document `Identifying 3Com Adapters By Assembly Number' (ref 24500002) that would most likely clear things up. See ``Technical Information from 3Com'' for info on how to get documents from 3Com. 3.1.1. 3c501 Status -- Semi-Supported Too brain-damaged to use. Available surplus from many places. Avoid it like the plague. Again, do not purchase this card, even as a joke. It's performance is horrible, and it breaks in many ways. Cameron L. Spitzer of 3Com said: ``I'm speaking only for myself here, of course, but I believe 3Com advises against installing a 3C501 in a new system, mostly for the same reasons Donald has discussed. You probably won't be happy with the 3C501 in your Linux box. The data sheet is marked `(obsolete)' on 3Com's Developers' Order Form, and the board is not part of 3Com's program for sending free Technical Reference Manuals to people who need them. The decade-old things are nearly indestructible, but that's about all they've got going for them any more.'' For those not yet convinced, the 3c501 can only do one thing at a time -- while you are removing one packet from the single-packet buffer it cannot receive another packet, nor can it receive a packet while are loading a transmit packet. This was fine for a network between two 8088-based computers where processing each packet and replying took 10's of msecs, but modern networks send back-to-back packets for almost every transaction. Donald writes: `The driver is now in the std. kernel, but under the following conditions: This is unsupported code. I know the usual copyright says all the code is unsupported, but this is _really_ unsupported. I DON'T want to see bug reports, and I'll accept bug fixes only if I'm in a good mood that day. I don't want to be flamed later for putting out bad software. I don't know all all of the 3c501 bugs, and I know this driver only handles a few that I've been able to figure out. It has taken a long intense effort just to get the driver working this well.' AutoIRQ works, DMA isn't used, the autoprobe only looks at 0x280 and 0x300, and the debug level is set with the third boot-time argument. Once again, THE USE OF A 3c501 IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED! 3.1.2. 3c503, 3c503/16 Status -- Supported 3Com shared-memory ethercards. They also have a programmed I/O mode that doesn't use the 8390 facilities (their engineers found too many bugs!) It should be about the same speed as the same bus width WD80x3, Unless you are a light user, spend the extra money and get the 16 bit model, as the price difference isn't significant. The 3c503 does not have ``EEPROM setup'', so the diagnostic/setup program isn't needed before running the card with Linux. The shared memory address of the 3c503 is set using jumpers that are shared with the boot PROM address. This is confusing to people familiar with other ISA cards, where you always leave the jumper set to ``disable'' unless you have a boot PROM. The Linux 3c503 driver can also work with the 3c503 programmed-I/O mode, but this is slower and less reliable than shared memory mode. Also, programmed-I/O mode is not tested when updating the drivers, the deadman (deadcard?) check code may falsely timeout on some machines, and the probe for a 3c503 in programmed-I/O mode is turned off by default in some versions of the kernel. This was a panic reaction to the general device driver probe explosion; the 3c503 shared memory probe is a safe read from memory, rather than an extensive scan through I/O space. As of pl13, the kernel has an I/O port registrar that makes I/O space probes safer, and the programmed-I/O 3c503 probe has been re-enabled. You still shouldn't use the programmed-I/O mode though, unless you need it for MS-DOS compatibility. The 3c503's IRQ line is set in software, with no hints from an EEPROM. Unlike the MS-DOS drivers, the Linux driver has capability to autoIRQ: it uses the first available IRQ line in {5,2/9,3,4}, selected each time the card is ifconfig'ed. (Older driver versions selected the IRQ at boot time.) The ioctl() call in `ifconfig' will return EAGAIN if no IRQ line is available at that time. Some common problems that people have with the 503 are discussed in ``Problems with...''. 3.1.3. 3c505 Status -- Semi-Supported This is a driver that was written by Craig Southeren geoffw@extro.ucc.su.oz.au -- It is an Intel based ethercard, but I really haven't seen that much mention of them, and I don't think there are that many of them about. It is included in the standard kernel, but it is classed as an alpha driver. See ``Alpha Drivers'' for important information on using alpha-test ethernet drivers with Linux. There is also the file /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/README.3c505 that you should read if you are going to use one of these cards. It contains various options that you can enable/disable. 3.1.4. 3c507 Status -- Semi-Supported This card uses one of the Intel chips, and the development of the driver is closely related to the development of the Intel Ether Express driver. The driver is included in the standard kernel release, but as an alpha driver. See ``Alpha Drivers'' for important information on using alpha-test ethernet drivers with Linux. Technical information is available in ``Programming the Intel chips'' and if you have experience in writing drivers, see ``Skeleton driver'' as well. 3.1.5. 3c509 Status -- Supported A fairly new card from 3Com. It's inexpensive and has excellent performance for a non-bus-master design. The drawbacks are that it _requires_ very low interrupt latency, and it isn't rated for bus speeds greater than 8Mhz. A working 3c509 driver was first included as an alpha-test version in the 0.99pl13 kernel sources. It is now in the standard kernel. The 3c509 has a tiny Rx buffer, causing the driver to occasionally drop a packet if interrupts are masked for too long. To minimize this problem, the driver should be completely rewritten to use predictive interrupts. (Note: performance re-writes of working drivers are low priority unless there is some particular incentive or need.) There is also an alpha version of a Linux 3c509 diagnostic and EEPROM setup program, but for now users that don't like the defaults should use the MS-DOS EEPROM setup program. Cameron Spitzer writes: ``Beware that if you put a '509 in EISA addressing mode by mistake and save that in the EEPROM, you'll have to use an EISA machine or the infamous Test Via to get it back to normal, and it will conflict at IO location 0 which may hang your ISA machine. It's not my job to say whether this is a bug or feature, but I have heard loud and clear that customers don't like it and I don't think we'll do it that way again.'' 3.1.6. 3c52* Status -- Not Supported I am not sure of this, but I think all the 3c52* cards are MCA equivalents of their 3c50* counterparts. I'd appreciate it if someone could verify this. Some people are actually running Linux on MCA bus machines, and are playing with MCA ethercards. With a little bit of luck, MCA cards could use a lot of code from the ISA drivers, with the major change being i/o ports and the like. Don't hold your breath though. 3.1.7. 3c579 Status -- Supported The EISA version of the 509. The current EISA version uses the same 16 bit wide chip rather than a 32 bit interface, so the performance increase isn't stunning. The EISA probe code was added to 3c509.c for pl14. We would be interested in hearing progress reports from any 3c579 users. (Read the above 3c509 section for info on the driver.) Cameron Spitzer writes: ``The 3C579 (Etherlink III EISA) should be configured as an EISA card. The IO Base Address (window 0 register 6 bits 4:0) should be 1f, which selects EISA addressing mode. Logic outside the ASIC decodes the IO address s000, where s is the slot number. I don't think it was documented real well. Except for its IO Base Address, the '579 should behave EXACTLY like the'509 (EL3 ISA), and if it doesn't, I want to hear about it (at my work address).'' 3.1.8. 3c589 Status -- Semi-Supported Many people have been using this card for quite some time now. Note that support for it is not (at present) included in the default kernel source tree. Note that you will need a supported PCMCIA controller chipset. There are drivers available on Donald's ftp site: cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov:/pub/linux/pcmcia/README.3c589 ces- dis.gsfc.nasa.gov:/pub/linux/pcmcia/3c589.c ces- dis.gsfc.nasa.gov:/pub/linux/pcmcia/dbether.c Or for those that are net-surfing you can try: Don's PCMCIA Stuff (http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/pcmcia.html) You will still need a PCMCIA socket enabler as well. See ``PCMCIA Support'' for more info on PCMCIA chipsets, socket enablers, etc. 3.2. Allied Telesis 3.2.1. AT1500 Status --Supported These are a series of low-cost ethercards using the 79C960 version of the AMD LANCE. These are bus-master cards, and thus probably the fastest ISA bus ethercards available (although the 3c509 has lower latency thanks to predictive interrupts). DMA selection and chip numbering information can be found in ``AMD LANCE''. More technical information on AMD LANCE based Ethernet cards can be found in ``Notes on AMD...''. 3.2.2. AT1700 Status -- Supported The Allied Telesis AT1700 series ethercards are based on the Fujitsu MB86965. This chip uses a programmed I/O interface, and a pair of fixed-size transmit buffers. This allows small groups of packets to sent be sent back-to-back, with a short pause while switching buffers. A unique feature is the ability to drive 150ohm STP (Shielded Twisted Pair) cable commonly installed for Token Ring, in addition to 10baseT 100ohm UTP (unshielded twisted pair). The Fujitsu chip used on the AT1700 has a design flaw: it can only be fully reset by doing a power cycle of the machine. Pressing the reset button doesn't reset the bus interface. This wouldn't be so bad, except that it can only be reliably detected when it has been freshly reset. The solution/work-around is to power-cycle the machine if the kernel has a problem detecting the AT1700. Some production runs of the AT1700 had another problem: they are permanently wired to DMA channel 5. This is undocumented, there are no jumpers to disable the "feature", and no driver dares use the DMA capability because of compatibility problems. No device driver will be written using DMA if installing a second card into the machine breaks both, and the only way to disable the DMA is with a knife. The at1700 driver is included in the standard kernel source tree. 3.3. AMD / Advanced Micro Devices 3.3.1. AMD LANCE (7990, 79C960, PCnet-ISA) Status -- Supported There really is no AMD ethernet card. You are probably reading this because the only markings you could find on your card said AMD and the above number. The 7990 is the original `LANCE' chip, but most stuff (including this document) refer to all these similar chips as `LANCE' chips. (...incorrectly, I might add.) These above numbers refer to chips from AMD that are the heart of many ethernet cards. For example, the Allied Telesis AT1500 (see ``AT1500'') the NE1500/2100 (see ``NE1500'') and the Boca-VLB/PCI cards (see ``Boca-VLB/PCI'') The 79C960 (a.k.a. PCnet-ISA) contains enhancements and bug fixes over the original 7990 LANCE design. Chances are that the existing LANCE driver will work with all AMD LANCE based cards. (except perhaps the NI65XX - see ``NI65XX'' for more info on that one.) This driver should also work with NE1500 and NE2100 clones. For the ISA bus master mode all structures used directly by the LANCE, the initialization block, Rx and Tx rings, and data buffers, must be accessible from the ISA bus, i.e. in the lower 16M of real memory. This is a problem for current Linux kernels on >16M machines. The network devices are initialized after memory initialization, and the kernel doles out memory from the top of memory downward. The current solution is to have a special network initialization routine that's called before memory initialization; this will eventually be generalized for all network devices. Low-memory `bounce-buffers' are used when needed. The DMA channel can be set with the low bits of the otherwise-unused dev->mem_start value (aka PARAM_1). (see ``PARAM_1'') If unset it is probed for by enabling each free DMA channel in turn and checking if initialization succeeds. The HP-J2405A board is an exception: with this board it's easy to read the EEPROM-set values for the IRQ, and DMA. See ``Notes on AMD...'' for more info on these chips. 3.3.2. AMD 79C961 (PCnet-ISA+) Status -- Supported This is the PCnet-ISA+ -- an enhanced version of the 79C960. It has support for jumper-less configuration and Plug and Play. See the info in the above section. 3.3.3. AMD 79C965 (PCnet-32) Status -- Supported This is the PCnet-32 -- a 32 bit bus-master version of the original LANCE chip for VL-bus and local bus systems. Minor cleanups were added to the original lance driver around v1.1.50 to support these 32 bit versions of the LANCE chip. The main problem was that the current versions of the '965 and '970 chips have a minor bug. They clear the Rx buffer length field in the Rx ring when they are explicitly documented not to. Again, see the above info. 3.3.4. AMD 79C970 (PCnet-PCI) Status -- Supported This is the PCnet-PCI -- similar to the PCnet-32, but designed for PCI bus based systems. Again, see the above info. 3.3.5. AMD 79C974 (PCnet-SCSI) Status -- Supported This is the PCnet-SCSI -- treated like a '970 from Linux's point of view. Again, see the above info. 3.4. Ansel Communications 3.4.1. AC3200 EISA Status -- Semi-Supported This driver is included in the present kernel as an alpha test driver. Please see ``Alpha Drivers'' in this document for important information regarding alpha drivers. If you use it, let Donald know how things work out, as not too many people have this card and feedback has been low. 3.5. Apricot 3.5.1. Apricot Xen-II On Board Ethernet Status -- Supported This on board ethernet uses an i82596 bus-master chip. It can only be at i/o address 0x300. The author of this driver is Mark Evans. By looking at the driver source, it appears that the IRQ is hardwired to 10. 3.6. Arcnet Status -- Not Really Supported At present, there is no stable Arcnet driver for Linux. With the very low cost and better performance of ethernet, chances are that most places will be giving away their Arcnet hardware for free, resulting in a lot of home systems with Arcnet. An advantage of Arcnet is that all of the cards have identical interfaces, so once a driver is available it will work for everyone. If you are feeling brave, there is `arcnet.c' in the usual place (see ``Alpha Drivers'' if you don't know where that is) that you can play with. Don't expect to just plug in this file and have everything work. However it may prove to be a good starting point for a bored driver- hacker. Also look at Russ Nelson's `arcether' packet driver. Recent interest in getting Arcnet going has picked up again and Avery Pennarun has put an alpha driver up on sunsite. Look for: /pub/Linux/system/Network/drivers/arcnet-0.12.tar.gz The `0.12' is likely to have changed by the time you read this, so look around and find the newest one. Bug reports and success stories can be mailed to: apenwarr@tourism.807-city.on.ca 3.7. AT-Lan-Tec / RealTek 3.7.1. AT-Lan-Tec / RealTek Pocket adaptor Status -- Supported This is a generic, low-cost OEM pocket adaptor being sold by AT-Lan- Tec, and (likely) a number of other suppliers. A driver for it is included in the standard kernel. Note that there is substantial information contained in the driver source file `atp.c' which presently lives in ./drivers/net/ BTW, the adaptor (AEP-100L) has both 10baseT and BNC connections! You can reach AT-Lan-Tec at 1-301-948-7070. Ask for the model that works with Linux, or ask for `Vincent Bono' in tech support. In the Netherlands a compatible adaptor is sold under the name SHI-TEC PE-NET/CT, and sells for about $125. The vendor was Megasellers. They state that they do not sell to private persons, but this doesn't appear to be strictly adhered to. They are: Megasellers, Vianen, The Netherlands. They always advertise in Dutch computer magazines. In Germany, a similar adaptor comes as a no-brand-name product. Prolan 890b, no brand on the casing, only a roman II. Resellers can get a price of about $130, including a small wall transformer for the power. The adaptor is `normal size' for the product class, about 57mm wide, 22mm high tapering to 15mm high at the DB25 connector, and 105mm long (120mm including the BNC socket). It's switchable between the RJ45 and BNC jacks with a small slide switch positioned between the two: a very intuitive design. Donald performed some power draw measurements, and determined that the average current draw was only about 100mA @ 5V. This power draw is low enough that you could buy or build a cable to take the 5V directly from the keyboard/mouse port available on many laptops. (Bonus points here for using a standardized power connector instead of proprietary one.) 3.8. Boca Research Yes, they make more than just multi-port serial cards. :-) 3.8.1. Boca PCI, Boca VLB Status -- Supported These cards are based on AMD's PCnet chips, used in the AT1500 and the like. You can pick up a combo (10Base-T and 10Base-2) PCI card for under $70 at the moment. Chip numbering information can be found in ``AMD LANCE''. More technical information on AMD LANCE based Ethernet cards can be found in ``Notes on AMD...''. 3.9. Cabletron Donald writes: `Yes, another one of these companies that won't release its programming information. They waited for months before actually confirming that all their information was proprietary, deliberately wasting my time. Avoid their cards like the plague if you can. Also note that some people have phoned Cabletron, and have been told things like `a D. Becker is working on a driver for linux' -- making it sound like I work for them. This is NOT the case.' If you feel like asking them why they don't want to release their info so that people can use their cards, write to support@ctron.com Tell them that you are using Linux, and are disappointed that they don't support open systems. 3.9.1. E10**, E10**-x, E20**, E20**-x Status -- Semi-Supported These are NEx000 almost-clones that are reported to work with the standard NEx000 drivers, thanks to a ctron-specific check during the probe. If there are any problems, they are unlikely to be fixed, as the programming information is unavailable. 3.9.2. E2100 Status -- Semi-Supported Again, there is not much one can do when the programming information is proprietary. The E2100 is a poor design. Whenever it maps its shared memory in during a packet transfer, it maps it into the whole 128K region! That means you can't safely use another interrupt-driven shared memory device in that region, including another E2100. It will work most of the time, but every once in a while it will bite you. (Yes, this problem can be avoided by turning off interrupts while transferring packets, but that will almost certainly lose clock ticks.) Also, don't confuse the E2100 for a NE2100 clone. The E2100 is a shared memory NatSemi DP8390 design, roughly similar to a brain- damaged WD8013, whereas the NE2100 (and NE1500) use a bus-mastering AMD LANCE design. There is an E2100 driver included in the standard kernel. However, seeing as programming info isn't available, don't expect bug-fixes. I wouldn't recommend using one unless I was already stuck with the card. 3.10. D-Link 3.10.1. DE-100, DE-200, DE-220-T Status -- Supported The manual says that it is 100 % compatible with the NE2000. This is not true. You should call them and tell them you are using their card with Linux, and they should correct their documentation. Some pre-0.99pl12 driver versions may have trouble recognizing the DE2** series as 16 bit cards, and these cards are the most widely reported as having the spurious transfer address mismatch errors. Note that there are cards from Digital (DEC) that are also named DE100 and DE200, but the similarity stops there. 3.10.2. DE-600 Status -- Supported Laptop users and other folk who might want a quick way to put their computer onto the ethernet may want to use this. The driver is included with the default kernel source tree. Bjorn Ekwall bj0rn@blox.se wrote the original. Expect about 80kb/s transfer speed from this via the parallel port. You should read the README.DLINK file in the kernel source tree. Note that the device name that you pass to ifconfig is not eth0 but dl0 for the this device. Supposedly, a no-name ethernet pocket adaptor marketed under the name `PE-1200' is DE-600 compatible. It is available in Europe from: SEMCON Handels Ges.m.b.h Favoritenstrasse 20 A-1040 WIEN Telephone: (+43) 222 50 41 708 Fax : (+43) 222 50 41 706 3.10.3. DE-620 Status -- Supported Same as the DE-600, only with two output formats. Bjorn has written a driver for this model, for kernel versions 1.1 and above. See the above information on the DE-600. Note that the device name that you pass to ifconfig is not eth0 but dl0 for the this device. 3.10.4. DE-650 Status -- Semi-Supported Some people have been using this PCMCIA card for some time now with their notebooks. It is a basic 8390 design, much like a NE2000. The LinkSys PCMCIA card and the IC-Card Ethernet (available from Midwest Micro) are supposedly DE-650 clones as well. Note that at present, this driver is not part of the standard kernel, and so you will have to do some patching. See ``PCMCIA Support'' in this document, and if you can, have a look at: Don's PCMCIA Stuff (http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/pcmcia.html) 3.11. DFI 3.11.1. DFINET-300 and DFINET-400 Status -- Supported These cards are now detected (as of pl15) thanks to Eberhard Moenkeberg emoenke@gwdg.de who noted that they use `DFI' in the first 3 bytes of the prom, instead of using 0x57 in bytes 14 and 15, which is what all the NE1000 and NE2000 cards use. (The 300 is an 8 bit pseudo NE1000 clone, and the 400 is a pseudo NE2000 clone.) 3.12. Digital / DEC 3.12.1. DE200, DE210, DE202, DE100, DEPCA rev E Status -- Supported As of linux v1.0, there is a driver included as standard for these cards. It was written by David C. Davies. There is documentation included in the source file `depca.c', which includes info on how to use more than one of these cards in a machine. If you have / want to use the pl15 kernel or older, then you will have to use Peter Bauer's driver. It can be found as a separate patch called depca-0.8.tar.gz. You will have to un-comment the DEPCA line in `config.in' after installing the patch. You can find the patch on ftp.funet.fi, /pub/OS/Linux/BETA/depca/depca-0.8.tar.gz This version resets the card upon close so that you can use it with broken DOS drivers after a warm boot. 3.12.2. Digital Etherlink III Status -- Not Supported Peter Bauer said that `the new etherlink III seems to be a break: No official docu from DEC as far as today, other (incompatible??) hardware used, and (no joke) (at least for the first delivered cards) also a sharp knife necessary to get the card working (needs cut of some irq lines ...) As far as I know, lots of DEC Employees use Linux (at least for hobby purposes) and the depca-driver, because its a de- facto standard in DEC, so I encourage any DEC-employee reading this to check whether my writing is true, and to support sources of information about the etherworks-III.' 3.12.3. DEC 21040, 21140 Status -- Not Supported These are new chips from DEC, designed for PCI ethernet cards, with the newer 21140 supporting 100Base-? I don't have any other info at the moment. Donald mentioned that he might work on a driver for the 21040 at one stage or another. 3.13. Falleron Falleron sells EtherWave adaptors and transceivers. This device allows multiple 10baseT devices to be daisy-chained. 3.13.1. Falleron Etherwave Status -- Supported This is reported to be a 3c509 clone that includes the EtherWave transceiver. People have used these successfully with Linux and the present 3c509 driver. They are too expensive for general use, but are a great option for special cases. Hublet prices start at $125, and Etherwave adds $75-$100 to the price of the board -- worth it if you have pulled one wire too few, but not if you are two network drops short. 3.14. Hewlett Packard The 272** cards use programmed I/O, similar to the NE*000 boards, but the data transfer port can be `turned off' when you aren't accessing it, avoiding problems with autoprobing drivers. Thanks to Glenn Talbott for helping clean up the confusion in this section regarding the version numbers of the HP hardware. 3.14.1. 27245A Status -- Supported 8 Bit 8390 based 10BaseT, not recommended for all the 8 bit reasons. It was re-designed a couple years ago to be highly integrated which caused some changes in initialization timing which only affected testing programs, not LAN drivers. (The new card is not `ready' as soon after switching into and out of loopback mode.) 3.14.2. HP PC Lan+ (27247A, 27247B, 27252A) Status -- Supported The HP PC Lan+ is different to the standard HP PC Lan card. This driver was added to the list of drivers in the standard kernel at about v1.1.3X. Note that even though the driver is included, the entry in `config.in' seems to have been omitted. If you want to use it, and it doesn't come up in `config.in' then add the following line to `config.in' under the `HP PCLAN support' line: bool 'HP PCLAN Plus support' CONFIG_HPLAN_PLUS n Then run `make config;make dep;make zlilo' or whatever. The 47B is a 16 Bit 8390 based 10BaseT w/AUI, and the 52A is a 16 Bit 8390 based ThinLAN w/AUI. These cards are high performers (3c509 speed) without the interrupt latency problems (32K onboard RAM for TX or RX packet buffering). They both offer LAN connector autosense, data I/O in I/O space (simpler) or memory mapped (faster), and soft configuration. The 47A is the older model that existed before the `B'. Two versions 27247-60001 or 27247-60002 have part numbers marked on the card. Functionally the same to the LAN driver, except bits in ROM to identify boards differ. -60002 has a jumper to allow operation in non- standard ISA busses (chipsets that expect IOCHRDY early.) 3.14.3. HP-J2405A Status -- Supported These are lower priced, and slightly faster than the 27247B/27252A, but are missing some features, such as AUI, ThinLAN connectivity, and boot PROM socket. This is a fairly generic LANCE design, but a minor design decision makes it incompatible with a generic `NE2100' driver. Special support for it (including reading the DMA channel from the board) is included thanks to information provided by HP's Glenn Talbott. More technical information on LANCE based cards can be found in ``Notes on AMD...'' 3.14.4. HP-Vectra On Board Ethernet Status -- Supported The HP-Vectra has an AMD PCnet chip on the motherboard. Earlier kernel versions would detect it as the HP-J2405A but that would fail, as the Vectra doesn't report the IRQ and DMA channel like the J2405A. Get a kernel newer than v1.1.53 to avoid this problem. DMA selection and chip numbering information can be found in ``AMD LANCE''. More technical information on LANCE based cards can be found in ``Notes on AMD...'' 3.15. IBM / International Business Machines 3.15.1. IBM Thinkpad 300 Status -- Supported This is compatible with the Intel based Zenith Z-note. See ``Z-note'' for more info. Supposedly this site has a comprehensive database of useful stuff for newer versions of the Thinkpad. I haven't checked it out myself yet. Thinkpad-info (http://peipa.essex.ac.uk/html/linux-thinkpad.html) For those without a WWW browser handy, try peipa.essex.ac.uk:/pub/tp750/ 3.15.2. IBM Credit Card Adaptor for Ethernet Status -- Semi-Supported People have been using this PCMCIA card with Linux as well. Similar points apply, those being that you need a supported PCMCIA chipset on your notebook, and that you will have to patch the PCMCIA support into the standard kernel. See ``PCMCIA Support'' in this document, and if you can, have a look at: Don's PCMCIA Stuff (http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/pcmcia.html) 3.16. Intel Ethernet Cards 3.16.1. Ether Express Status -- Semi-Supported This card uses the intel i82586. (Surprise, huh?) The driver is in the standard release of the kernel, as an alpha driver. See ``Alpha Drivers'' for important information on using alpha-test ethernet drivers with Linux. The reason is that the driver works well with slow machines, but the i82586 occasionally hangs from the packet buffer contention that a fast machine can cause. One reported hack/fix is to change all of the outw() calls to outw_p(). Also, the driver is missing promiscuous and multicast modes. (See ``Multicast and...'') There is also the standard way of using the chip (read slower) that is described in the chip manual, and used in other i82586 drivers, but this would require a re-write of the entire driver. There is some technical information available on the i82586 in ``Programming the Intel Chips'' and also in the source code for the driver `eexpress.c'. Don't be afraid to read it. ;-) 3.17. LinkSys 3.17.1. LinkSys PCMCIA Adaptor Status -- Semi-Supported This is supposed to be a re-badged DE-650. See the information on the DE-650 in ``DE-650''. 3.18. Mylex 3.18.1. Mylex LNP101, LNP104 Status -- Not Supported These are PCI cards that are based on DEC's 21040 chip. The LNP104 uses the 21050 chip to deliver four independent 10Base-T ports. The standard LNP101 is selectable between 10Base-T, 10Base-2 and 10Base-5 output. These cards may work with a generic 21040 driver if and when Linux gets one. (They aren't cheap either.) Mylex can be reached at the following numbers, in case anyone wants to ask them about programming information and the like. MYLEX CORPORATION, Fremont Sales: 800-77-MYLEX, (510) 796-6100 FAX: (510) 745-8016. 3.19. Novell Ethernet, NExxxx and associated clones. The prefix `NE' came from Novell Ethernet. Novell followed the cheapest NatSemi databook design and sold the manufacturing rights (spun off?) Eagle, just to get reasonably-priced ethercards into the market. (The now ubiquitous NE2000 card.) 3.19.1. NE1000, NE2000 Status -- Supported The now-generic name for a bare-bones design around the NatSemi 8390. They use programmed I/O rather than shared memory, leading to easier installation but slightly lower performance and a few problems. Again, the savings of using an 8 bit NE1000 over the NE2000 are only warranted if you expect light use. Some recently introduced NE2000 clones use the National Semiconductor `AT/LANTic' 83905 chip, which offers a shared memory mode similar to the 8013 and EEPROM or software configuration. Some problems can arise with poor clones. See ``Problems with...'', and ``NE2000 Clones'' Donald has written a NE2000 diagnostic program, but it is still presently in alpha test. (ne2k) You can get it from the same place as the rest of Donald's work, see ``Alpha Drivers'' for the how and where. 3.19.2. NE1500, NE2100 Status -- Supported These cards use the original 7990 LANCE chip from AMD and are supported using the Linux lance driver. Some earlier versions of the lance driver had problems with getting the IRQ line via autoIRQ from the original Novell/Eagle 7990 cards. Hopefully this is now fixed. If not, then specify the IRQ via LILO, and let us know that it still has problems. DMA selection and chip numbering information can be found in ``AMD LANCE''. More technical information on LANCE based cards can be found in ``Notes on AMD...'' 3.19.3. NE3200 Status -- Not Supported This card uses a lowly 8MHz 80186, and hence you are better off using a cheap NE2000 clone. Even if a driver was available, the NE2000 card would most likely be faster. 3.20. Pure Data 3.20.1. PDUC8028, PDI8023 Status -- Supported The PureData PDUC8028 and PDI8023 series of cards are reported to work, thanks to special probe code contributed by Mike Jagdis jaggy@purplet.demon.co.uk. The support is integrated with the WD driver. 3.21. Racal-Interlan 3.21.1. NI52** Status -- Semi-Supported Michael Hipp has written a driver for this card. It is included in the standard kernel as an `alpha' driver. Michael would like to hear feedback from users that have this card. See ``Alpha Drivers'' for important information on using alpha-test ethernet drivers with Linux. Michael says that ``the internal sysbus seems to be slow. So we often lose packets because of overruns while receiving from a fast remote host.'' This card also uses one of the Intel chips. See ``Programming the Intel Chips'' for more technical information. 3.21.2. NI65** Status -- Semi-Supported There is also a driver for the LANCE based NI6510, and it is also written by Michael Hipp. Again, it is also an `alpha' driver. For some reason, this card is not compatible with the generic LANCE driver. See ``Alpha Drivers'' for important information on using alpha-test ethernet drivers with Linux. 3.22. Sager 3.22.1. Sager NP943 Status -- Semi-Supported This is just a 3c501 clone, with a different S.A. PROM prefix. I assume it is equally as brain dead as the original 3c501 as well. Kernels 1.1.53 and up check for the NP943 i.d. and then just treat it as a 3c501 after that. See ``3Com 3c501'' for all the reasons as to why you really don't want to use one of these cards. 3.23. Schneider & Koch 3.23.1. SK G16 Status -- Supported This driver was included into the v1.1 kernels, and it was written by PJD Weichmann and SWS Bern. It appears that the SK G16 is similar to the NI6510, in that it is based on the first edition LANCE chip (the 7990). Once again, I have no idea as to why this card won't work with the generic LANCE driver. 3.24. Western Digital / SMC (Standard Microsystems Corp.) The ethernet part of Western Digital has been bought by SMC. One common mistake people make is that the relatively new SMC Elite Ultra is the same as the older SMC Elite16 models -- this is not the case. Here is how to contact SMC (not that you should need to.) SMC / Standard Microsystems Corp., 80 Arkay Drive, Hauppage, New York, 11788, USA. Technical Support via phone: 800-992-4762 (USA) 800-433-5345 (Canada) 516-435-6250 (Other Countries) Literature requests: 800-SMC-4-YOU (USA) 800-833-4-SMC (Canada) 516-435-6255 (Other Countries) 3.24.1. WD8003, SMC Elite Status -- Supported These are the 8-bit versions of the card. The 8 bit 8003 is slightly less expensive, but only worth the savings for light use. As these are basically the same as their 16 bit counterparts (WD8013 / SMC Elite16), you should see the next section for more information. 3.24.2. WD8013, SMC Elite16 Status -- Supported Over the years the design has added more registers and an EEPROM. Clones usually go by the `8013' name, and usually use a non-EEPROM (jumpered) design. This part of WD has been sold to SMC, so you'll usually see something like SMC/WD8013 or SMC Elite16 Plus (WD8013). The shared memory makes the cards 10-20 % faster, especially with larger packets. More importantly (to me at least) it avoids a few bugs in the programmed-I/O mode of the 8390, allows safe multi-threaded access to the packet buffer, and doesn't have a programmed-I/O data register that hangs your machine during warm-boot probes. There has been a Linux program `wdsetup' floating around here and there, but it fails to work properly with some cards. Best to use the MS-DOS utility that came with your card if you have an EEPROM version. Besides, hopefully it is something you will only be setting once. Also see ``8013 clones'' and ``8013 problems''. 3.24.3. SMC Elite Ultra Status -- Supported This ethercard is based on a new chip from SMC, with a few new features. While it has a mode that is similar to the older SMC ethercards, it's not compatible with the old WD80*3 drivers. However, in this mode it shares most of its code with the other 8390 drivers, while operating somewhat faster than a WD8013 clone. Some of the device probe checks in pl14 were too too strict, causing some cards to not be detected every time. This was fixed for pl14a, and hence is fine for pl15. Since part of the Ultra looks like an 8013, the Ultra probe is supposed to find an Ultra before the wd8013 probe has a chance to mistakenly identify it. Std. as of pl14, and made possible by documentation and ethercard loan from Duke Kamstra. If you plan on using an Ultra with Linux send him a note of thanks to let him know that there are Linux users out there! I'm considering writing a separate driver for the Ultra's `Altego' mode which allows chaining transmits at the cost of inefficient use of receive buffers, but that will probably not happen right away. Performance re-writes of working drivers are low priority unless there is some particular incentive or need. Bus-Master SCSI host adaptor users take note: In the manual that ships with Interactive UNIX, it mentions that a bug in the SMC Ultra will cause data corruption with SCSI disks being run from an aha-154X host adaptor. This will probably bite aha-154X compatible cards, such as the BusLogic boards, and the AMI-FastDisk SCSI host adaptors as well. Supposedly SMC has acknowledged the problem occurs with Interactive, and older Windows NT drivers. It is supposed to be a hardware conflict that can be worked around in the driver design. More on this as it develops. Some Linux users with an Ultra + aha-154X compatible cards have experienced data corruption, while others have not. Donald tried this combination himself, and wasn't able to reproduce the problem. You have been warned. 3.24.4. SMC PCI Card Status -- Not Supported Supposedly SMC is offering an evaluation deal of one of these new PCI cards for $99 -- not a real great deal when you consider that the BOCA PCnet-PCI based cards are going for about $70 and they are supported under Linux already. If anybody knows what chipset is on these new SMC cards, let me know. 3.25. Xircom Another group that won't release documentation. No cards supported. Don't look for any support in the future unless they release their programming information. And this is highly unlikely, as they *forbid* you from even reverse- engineering their drivers. If you are already stuck with one, see if you can trade it off on some DOS (l)user. ---End of part 1/2---