On Tuesday, 25. June 2002 14:49, you wrote: > From: "Francis Avila" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [Ltsp-discuss] mount nfs root 4 min > Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 09:44:10 -0400 > > [...] how bad rtl8139 is. > > It's important to note that the rtl8139 chipset is really not a whole lot > better than the NE2000. Its chief advantage is that it's designed with PCI > in mind, and is more suited to that architecture than NE2000. However, > it's still a really, really cheap chipset, and don't expect too much from > it. I've found it to be very unreliable at 100Mbps, and just forget about > full-duplex (which is usually more trouble than it's worth, anyway, even > with very expensive cards).
I am using a cheapy RTL8139 card in my home server at 100MBps/FullDuplex without any problem. The via-rhine based card I had till half a year ago was just crap. Collapsing every two hours or so for several seconds... of course always when I needed it most. The second via-rhine I had in my desktop is just being replaced (after I shut down Linux...). I can only discourage usage of via-rhine, while RTL run fine for me. > If you are building a LTSP network from scratch, do avoid these cards > unless you are completely impoverished. In which case, however, better > these than the NE2000s. Agree. Dumped them long time ago (after a thunderstorm killed them) and swapped for via-rhine. Was a mistake though. > As a corollary, however: these cards are nice for small, non-critical > networks (e.g., a home network) as they can be got for incredibly low > prices (e.g., <25 $US ). As I am listed as reseller, I can get rtl8139 based PCI for about 7,50 Euro per piece +tax here in Germany, even in small quantities, so end-user-prize about 9 US-$ if I don't need to earn on them :-) as on my pet project at two schools nearby. I'd prefer to put 3com into my computers, but 55 Euro up is a bit too expensive for my own machine, and schools do never have money. As long as rtl is so problem-free, I will stick to them. Anselm ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: Jabber Inc. Don't miss the IM event of the season | Special offer for OSDN members! JabConf 2002, Aug. 20-22, Keystone, CO http://www.jabberconf.com/osdn _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.openprojects.net
