Ethernet adapters vary greatly in performance. In general the newer the
design the better. Some very old cards like the 3Com 3C501 are only useful
because they can be found in junk heaps for $5 a time. Be careful
with clones, not all are good clones and bad clones often cause erratic
lockups under Linux. Read the Ethernet HOWTO,
http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/, for detailed descriptions of various cards.
Ethernet
For ethernet cards with the DECchip DC21x4x family the "Tulip" driver is available. More information on this driver can be found at
http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/tulip.html.
- 3Com 3C501 - ``avoid like the plague''
- 3Com 3C503, 3C505, 3C507, 3C509/3C509B (ISA) / 3C579 (EISA)
- 3Com Etherlink III Vortex Ethercards (3C590, 3c592, 3C595, 3c597) (PCI),
3Com Etherlink XL Boomerang Ethercards (3c900, 3c905) (PCI) and
3Com Fast EtherLink Ethercard (3c515) (ISA)
Newer versions of this driver are available at
http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html
- AMD LANCE (79C960) / PCnet-ISA/PCI (AT1500, HP J2405A, NE1500/NE2100)
- AT&T GIS WaveLAN
- Allied Telesis AT1700
- Allied Telesis LA100PCI-T
- Ansel Communications AC3200 EISA
- Apricot Xen-II / 82596
- Cabletron E21xx
- Cogent EM110
- Danpex EN-9400
- DEC DE425 (EISA) / DE434/DE435 (PCI) / DE450/DE500 (DE4x5 driver)
- DEC DE450/DE500-XA (Tulip driver)
- DEC DEPCA and EtherWORKS
- DEC EtherWORKS 3
- DEC QSilver's (Tulip driver)
- Fujitsu FMV-181/182/183/184
- HP PCLAN (27245 and 27xxx series)
- HP PCLAN PLUS (27247B and 27252A)
- HP 10/100VG PCLAN (J2577, J2573, 27248B, J2585) (ISA/EISA/PCI)
More information at
http://cesdis1.gsfc.nasa.gov:80/linux/drivers/100vg.html
- ICL EtherTeam 16i / 32 EISA
- Intel EtherExpress
- Intel EtherExpress Pro
- KTI ET16/P-D2, ET16/P-DC ISA (work jumperless and with hardware-configuration options)
- NE2000/NE1000 (be careful with clones)
- New Media Ethernet
- PureData PDUC8028, PDI8023
- SEEQ 8005
- SMC Ultra / EtherEZ (ISA)
- SMC 9000 series
- SMC PCI EtherPower 10/100 (Tulip driver)
- Schneider & Koch G16
- Western Digital WD80x3
- Zenith Z-Note / IBM ThinkPad 300 built-in adapter
- Znyx 312 etherarray (Tulip driver)
ISDN
ISDN cards that emulate standard modems or common Ethernet adapters don't need any special drivers to work.
Pocket and portable adapters
- Accton parallel port ethernet adapter
- AT-Lan-Tec/RealTek parallel port adapter
- D-Link DE600/DE620 parallel port adapter
Slotless
- SLIP/CSLIP/PPP (serial port)
- EQL (serial IP load balancing)
- PLIP (parallel port) - using ``LapLink cable'' or bi-directional cable
ARCnet
- Works with all ARCnet cards
Token Ring
- Any IBM token ring card not using DMA
- IBM Tropic chipset cards
FDDI
- DEC DEFEA (EISA) / DEFPA (PCI) (kernel 2.0.24 and later)
Amateur radio (AX.25)
- Gracilis PackeTwin
- Ottawa PI/PI2
- Most generic 8530 based HDLC boards
PCMCIA cards
- See Appendix B for complete list
Ethernet
- Racal-Interlan NI5210 (i82586 Ethernet chip)
- Racal-Interlan NI6510 (am7990 lance chip). Starting with kernel 1.3.66 more than 16Mb Ram is supported.
- Racal-Interlan PCI card (AMD PC net chip 97c970) ??
ISDN
ATM
Frame Relay
Wireless
- Xircom adapters (PCMCIA and parallel port)
- IBM PCI Token Ring cards (all of them)
- Sysconnect / Schneider & Koch Token Ring cards (all of them)