Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO: Network adapters

12. Network adapters

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://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/, for detailed descriptions of various cards.

12.1 Supported

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'' (3c501 driver)
3Com 3c503 (3c503 driver), 3c505 (3c505 driver), 3c507 (3c507 driver), 3c509/3c509B (ISA) / 3c579 (EISA)
3Com Etherlink III Vortex Ethercards (3c590, 3c592, 3c595, 3c597) (PCI), 3Com Etherlink XL Boomerang (3c900, 3c905) (PCI) and Cyclone (3c905B, 3c980) Ethercards (3c59x driver) and 3Com Fast EtherLink Ethercard (3c515) (ISA) (3c515 driver)
Newer versions of this drivers are available at http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/vortex.html
Avoid the 3c900 card when possible as the driver is not functioning well for this card.
3Com 3ccfe575 Cyclone Cardbus (3c59x driver)
3Com 3c575 series Cardbus (3c59x driver) (ALL PCMCIA ??)
AMD LANCE (79C960) / PCnet-ISA/PCI (AT1500, HP J2405A, NE1500/NE2100)
AT&T GIS WaveLAN
Allied Telesis AT1700
Allied Telesis LA100PCI-T
Allied Telesyn AT2400T/BT ("ne" module)
Ansel Communications AC3200 (EISA)
Apricot Xen-II / 82596
Cabletron E21xx
Cogent EM110
Crystal Lan CS8920, Cs8900
http://www.cirrus.com/private/drivers/ethernet/edrivers.html
Danpex EN-9400
DEC DE425 (EISA) / DE434/DE435 (PCI) / DE450/DE500 (DE4x5 driver)
DEC DE450/DE500-XA (dc21x4x) (Tulip driver)
DEC DEPCA and EtherWORKS
DEC EtherWORKS 3 (DE203, DE204, DE205)
DEC QSilver's (Tulip driver)
Digi International RightSwitch
DLink DE-220P, DE-528CT, DE-530+, DFE-500TX, DFE-530TX
More information at http://www.dlink.ca/linux.html
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)
Macromate MN-220P (PnP or NE2000 mode)
NCR WaveLAN
NE2000/NE1000 (be careful with clones)
Netgear FA-310TX (Tulip chip)
New Media Ethernet
PureData PDUC8028, PDI8023
SEEQ 8005
SMC Ultra / EtherEZ (ISA)
SMC 9000 series
SMC PCI EtherPower 10/100 (Tulip driver)
SMC EtherPower II (epic100.c driver)
Sun LANCE adapters (kernel 2.2 and newer)
Sun Intel adapters (kernel 2.2 and newer)
Schneider & Koch G16
Western Digital WD80x3
Zenith Z-Note / IBM ThinkPad 300 built-in adapter
Znyx 312 etherarray (Tulip driver)

ISDN

Linux ISDN WWW page
This page seems to be gone ??
ISDN4Linux tools are available from ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/isdn4linux/v2.0

3Com Sonix Arpeggio
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/patches/network/sonix.tgz
ASUSCOM Network Inc. ISDNLink 128K PC adapter (HiSax)
AVM A1 (HiSax)
AVM B1 (avmb1)
Combinet EVERYWARE 1000 ISDN
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/kernel/patches/network/combinet1000isdn-1.02.tar.gz
Compaq ISDN S0 (ISA) (HiSax)
Creatix PnP S0 (HiSax)
Dr. Neuhaus Niccy PnP/PCI (HiSax)
Dynalink IS64PH (HiSax)
Eicon.Diehl Diva 2.0 (ISA/PCI) (S0 and U interface, no PRO version) (HiSax)
Eicon.Diehl Diva Piccola (HiSax)
Elsa Microlink PCC-16, PCF, PCF-Pro, PCC-8 (HiSax)
ELSA QuickStep 1000/1000PCI/3000 (HiSax)
HFC-2BS0 based cards (HiSax)
IBM Active 2000 (ISA) (act2000)
ICN ISDN cards (icn)
Ith Kommunikationstechnik GmbH MIC 16 (ISA) (HiSax)
ITK ix1-micro Rev.2 (HiSax)
Octal PCBIT (pcbit)
Sedlbauer Speed Card (HiSax)
Teles SO-8/SO-16.0/SO-16.3/SO-16.3c/SO-16.4 and compatible ones (HiSax)
Traverse Technologie NETjet PCI S0 (HiSax)
USR Sportster internal TA (HiSax)

ISDN cards that emulate standard modems or common Ethernet adapters don't need any special drivers to work.

Frame Relay

Emerging Technologies Inc Synchronous Adapters ( http://www.etinc.com)
- ET/5025 (1 port, 8-bit ISA)
- ET/5025-16 (2 ports, 16-bit ISA)
- ET/5025-25 (2 ports, 16-bit ISA)
- ET/5025pq (4 ports, PCI)

Wireless

ZCOM WL2420 ISA
Product information can be found at http://www.zcom.com.tw. Object file kernel drivers are available at www.boerde.de/~matthias/airnet/zcom_v12

X25

Emerging Technologies Inc Synchronous Adapters ( http://www.etinc.com)
- ET/5025 (1 port, 8-bit ISA)
- ET/5025-16 (2 ports, 16-bit ISA)
- ET/5025-25 (2 ports, 16-bit ISA)
- ET/5025pq (4 ports, PCI)

Pocket and portable adapters

For more information on Linux and use of the parallel port, go to the Linux Parallel Port Home Page http://www.torque.net/linux-pp.html or http://www.torque.net/parport/. Check Appendix C for a complete list of supported parallel port devices (excluding printers)

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

http://www.linuxtr.net

3Com 3C619/B/C Tokenlink 16/4 (ibmtr)
3Com 3C319 Velocity ISA (ibmtr)
IBM PCI token ring adapter
IBM Wake on Lan TR adapter
IBM 16/4 TR PCI Adapter 2, Adapter 2 Wake on Lan, Adapter 2 Wake on Lan Special
IBM High Speedd 100/16/4 token ring
IBM ISA 16/4, MCA 16/4 (ibmtr)
IBM Tropic chipset cards
Olicom RapidFire 3139, 3140, 3141, 3540
http://www.olicom.com
Olicom OC-3136, OC-3137, OC-3138, OC-3129
http://www.olicom.com
Madge Smart 100/16/4 PCI, 16/4 PCI Mk3, 16/4 PCI Mk2
http://www.madge.com
Madge Presto PCI, 16/4 CardBus
http://www.madge.com
Syskonnect TR4/16(+) SK-4190 ISA, SK-4590 PCI, SK-4591 PCI (sktr)

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 or the webpages of David Hinds at http://hyper.stanford.edu/HyperNews/get/pcmcia/home.html

12.2 Alpha, Beta drivers

Ethernet

Racal-Interlan NI5210 (i82586 Ethernet chip). Improved support in kernel 2.2 and newer
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) ??