On Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 07:57:44AM +0100, David Laight wrote:
> > > If a system sends a large TCP message it will go out as back to back
> > > ethernet frames.  
> > 
> > To a max of 4 segments, assuming following RFC recommendations.
> 
> Why? a full window of TCP data will be sent (at least once the window
> has opened).  The ethernet card will just shovel them out.
> 
> Ethernet cards do use more complicated backoff algorithms than when I
> first saw that traffic pattern on a LAN, but I don't know if they go as

From my point of view, a large part of this discussion is just plain
silly.  If you care about performance, in this day and age, you won't
be using a half-duplex network, period -- you'll be using switched
gigabit.  Gigabit switches are now down to $80, and decent gigabit cards
are down to $40 or less...

Thor