Re: Hardware question: Intel 10/100 parts

[Chuck Swiger <cswiger%mac.com@localhost>]

Hi, Chris--

On Nov 8, 2010, at 5:57 AM, Chris Ross wrote:
>  I have an i386 host that I'm looking to add an addition ethernet port to, 
> just for connection to a simply maintenance non-routed network.  I have both 
> 82557 parts lying around, and some 82558B parts lying around.  Anyone know 
> off the top of their head if either of them have more/less issues, either in 
> hardware, or the NetBSD support for them?  IIRC, the 82557 doesn't handle 
> VLANs, which mattered to me many years ago, but the VLANd interface has long 
> ago moved to gigabit, so it won't matter at all for this part.

Checking the driver source code suggests that compared with the 82557, the 
82558 supports PCI Memory Write & Invalidate, extended TxCB [which I believe 
can be used to enable Tx checksum offloading], and 1504-byte VLAN long frame 
support.  However, a 82557 can still handle max-sized VLAN tagged packets by 
setting a flag [it's FXP_FLAG_SAVE_BAD per the FreeBSD fxp driver by Bill Paul].

Over the years, I've probably dealt with hundreds of 8255x Intel NICs, and I 
consider them and the DEC Tulip 21x4x chips to be the most reliable of the 
100Mbs NICs.  (We used to buy them in 20 packs....  :-)

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck