Re: [Exim] Re: 100mbit nic: intel or 3com?

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Συντάκτης: Marc MERLIN
Ημερομηνία:  
Προς: Matthew Daubenspeck
Υ/ο: John Cichy, exim-users
Αντικείμενο: Re: [Exim] Re: 100mbit nic: intel or 3com?
On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 11:57:58AM -0500, Matthew Daubenspeck wrote:
> I've literally used thousands of Intel pro100 (server and desktop versions)
> NICs and to date have had no problems with them yet. They just don't quit.


Ok, this is seriously off topic for this list, but I have to correct this.

There are more than 7 subbtle denomiations of the eepro100 chip, each with
their own bugs and (sometimes) hardware lockups.
The former VA Linux Systems (where I work) used to sell systems based on
Intel motherboards, and I'm surprised I still have any hair on my head after
all the pulling I did each time one of those NICs onboard would lock up.
(we also had different versions of the PCI ones, and they weren't better)

And it's not like I could complain, I had Dragan Stancevic, one of the
developers of the eepro100 driver a few cubes away from mine, and he had NDA
docs from intel on the chips
Putting aside the fact that intel's external docs were missing crutial
things including magic bytes that later ended up in their e100 driver, it
took a *long* time before we got an eepro100 driver that mostly worked.

Today the situation is better. The eepro100 driver mostly works, and you can
also use the intel e100 driver if you have problems.
But saying the eepro100 is a trouble-free chip is *very* far from the truth.

Please flame or comment in private mail (keeping the 'Re:' in the subject
line), as it doesn't really belong here.

Marc
--
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking


Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/ | Finger marc_f@??? for PGP key