[tulip] Tulip or Realtek driver for Accton EN1207D-TX ??

[Mark Neill MIDTIER]

You're right, the EN1207 (and other 12XX chips) are RTL8139 chips, as I
found out in my HP system....

As far as stability, I have no problems with my RTL card...it's running as
the inside interface on a 3-computer network connected to my cablemodem at
home, and I have yet to have a problem with it after 2 months of pounding
on it.

--Mark


Mark Neill
Enterprise Backup &
  UNIX Administrator
CSX Technology
Mark_Neill@csx.com

On Wed, 16 Aug 2000 a@superbruger.dk wrote:

> Seemingly, Accton has changed the chip on their adapter to a Realtek 8139
> clone, while the product name remains unchanged. I have bought and returned
> a few Accton EN1207D-TX cards when I discovered that they contained a chip
> called MPX EN5038A and not DEC 21x4x . Expecting that this might be a DEC
> compatible chip, I downloaded a driver from www.accton.com.tw. Thedriver
>  is called en1207.c and is contained in a zip file ( 1207dlinux.zip ). 
> 
> The source code file reveals the following:  
> 
> /* rtl8139.c: A RealTek RTL8129/8139 Fast Ethernet driver for Linux. */
> /*
> 	Written 1997-1998 by Donald Becker.
> 
> 	This software may be used and distributed according to the terms
> 	of the GNU Public License, incorporated herein by reference.
>     All other rights reserved.
> 
> 	This driver is for boards based on the RTL8129 and RTL8139 PCI ethernet
> 
> 	chips.
> 
> 	The author may be reached as becker@CESDIS.gsfc.nasa.gov, or C/O
> 	Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences
> 	   Code 930.5, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD 20771
> 
> 	Support and updates available at
> 	http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/rtl8139.html
> 
> 	Twister-tuning code contributed by Kinston <shangh@realtek.com.tw>.
> */
> 
> static const char *version =
> "rtl8139.c:v0.99B 4/7/98 Donald Becker http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/rtl8139.html\n";
> 
> 
> .... 
> 
> 
> Well, I sure don't know much about drivers, but this is NOT a tulip driver.
> I think it is a customized Realtek driver, and hence I conclude that the
> Accton EN1207 network adapter contains a rtl 8139 compatible chip. 
> 
> I assume that a rtl8139 driver can not be used with a DEC 21x4x based network
> adapter, with or without customization. 
> 
> So I arrest my case, concluding that Accton has abandoned the DEC 21x4x and
> is now using a Realtek 8139 clone on this adapter. 
> 
> This is problematic, since all Linux documentation states that this net.
> adapter should use a tulip driver. 
> If my conclusions are correct, the documentation should be corrected as soon
> as possible. 
> 
> All my net. adapters are based on Realtek chips and I have stuck to that
> until I experienced problems that may be due to the fact that the rtl8139
> driver is not yet stable. Therefore I need a net. adapter with a stable driver
> such as tulip or x4x5 (are they really stable ? ) . 
> 
>    :->        
> Why buy Realtek whel you can buy a clone for twice the price !   
>    :-> 
> 
> Using this information, the staff at the local computerstore has decided
> that there is no reason to sell an 
> Accton adapter that is basically a 8139 clone, when they also can sell a
> 8139 based no_name adapter at half the price. 
> 
> Then my question to you folks at the Tulip mailing list: 
> Is there an affordable 10/100 Mbit (no Intel no 3Com) network adapter, which
> has a STABLE driver for Linux. 
> 
> 
> Sincerely, Anna Amandsen,  Denmark. 
> 
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