*BSD News Article 49668


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
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From: gbuchanan@shl.com (Gardner Buchanan)
Subject: Best/Best Supported Ethernet NIC for FreeBSD 2.x
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Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 22:50:17 GMT

Hello.

I'm building a weird kind of bridge/router out of a FreeBSD box,
currently using 3Com 3C509's on an ISA bus.  This has gotten
me started and will support debugging allright.  I have had
some of the oft reported plug&pray problems with these cards
and have come to understand that the ep driver for the 3C509
is not alltogether the best possible.

My question is therefore, what *is* (or are) the best quality
ethernet driver(s) in 2.x (2.05 currently) and what are the
highest performance cards which are well supported.  It looks
like I'll want high-end PCI cards.

In my application I can't currently make use of the 100MB/s
since the traffic I'm switching is on a 10MBs network, but
features like large on-card FIFOs and high quality analogue
designs are wanted.  Am I likely to find that the DEC based
100Mbs cards will yeild 10Mbs performance superior to 10MBs
only designs?

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Thanks
---
Gardner Buchanan
SHL Systemhouse Inc.
Ottawa Branch
(613) 236-9734