Cheap, good tulips...

[alex]

> A short while ago there was considerable discussion on the list
> concerning a source of cheap "generic" NICs with genuine DEC 21140's in
> them and with a minimum of wrapper crap (of the sort that drives Don
> nuts adding minipatches to the driver).
> 
> This note is just to report that I've had zero problems with the Wise
> Com tulip NIC.  

Thanks for posting this.

I'm in the process of setting up a linux router.  Right now I'm just
expirimenting, to see how stable the hardware and software is, and
I've had some problems with my Linksys Etherfast 10/100 cards and rh
5.2.  I'm not comfortable going live with the router now.

The cards work great in my desktop machine, but for some reason the
routing box tended to lock up once every few days.  I upgraded the
kernel to 2.1.132 and the tulip driver to .90, and haven't seen any
problems so far.  I don't know if it's because I've just been lucky,
or because the problem's been fixed.

Obviously, a router has to be stable.  Would I be a lot better off
with a different NIC?  The wise com tulip NICs are so cheap that if
there's any difference at all, it seems like it would make sense.

I've been thinking about going with an Intel EtherExpress card, but
they cost about 3 or 4 times as much, and I'm not sure they'll be any
more reliable.  I'd had to spend $600 on nic cards for my router, only
to find that it didn't do any good.