onboard NICs to stay away from?

[Mark Hahn]

> Especially crippled on-board LAN interfaces (i.e. the drivers don't work, 
> it's badly implemented, no possibility for booting over LAN, etc.)

RTL 8193's might qualify for that, though they're not really crippled,
just less featureful/efficient than others.  I have no idea whether the 
RTL (9xxx?) I see bundled on some boards is similar.  I seem to recall 
that the SiS NIC is at least usefully busmastering.  I can't tell whether
the nic in nforce boards is close enough to a supported NIC or not...

afaik, the 3com and Intel NICs found on other boards are uncrippled.

> Chipsets that are just so oriented towards consumer apps that they choke 
> the memory, or require some exotic (expensive) configuration, or have weird 
> video card interactions, 

wow, never even heard of such a thing.  choke memory?  the only video
card interactions I've heard of are broken video cards that don't 
play nice with the bus...

> or are totally undocumented in the "open literature"

haven't they all caved to the onslaught of the penguin army?

regards, mark hahn.