13. Network adapters

13.1.1. Ethernet

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 for detailed descriptions of various cards.

For ethernet cards with the DECchip DC21x4x family the "Tulip" driver is available. More information on this driver can be found at Donald Becker's site.

• 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 Donald Becker's site 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 (driver)

• 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

• 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) Driver here, more information at Donald Becker's site

• 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)

13.1.2. ISDN

• ISDN for Linux WWW page

• ISDN4Linux tools are available from here.

• 3Com Sonix Arpeggio (driver)

• ASUSCOM Network Inc. ISDNLink 128K PC adapter (HiSax)

• AVM A1 (HiSax)

• AVM B1 (avmb1)

• Combinet EVERYWARE 1000 ISDN (driver)

• 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)

13.1.3. WAN Cards

13.1.4. Wireless

• ZCOM WL2420 ISA Product information can be found here. Object file kernel drivers are available here.

13.1.5. Frame Relay, X.25, Synchronous PPP, Cisco HDLC

See WAN cards section.

13.1.6. Pocket and portable adapters

• For more information on Linux and use of the parallel port, go to the Linux Parallel Port Home Page ( alternate location). Check Appendix A for a complete list of supported parallel port devices (excluding printers).

13.1.7. Slotless

• SLIP/CSLIP/PPP (serial port)

• EQL (serial IP load balancing)

• PLIP (parallel port) - using ``LapLink cable'' or bi-directional cable

13.1.8. ARCnet

• Works with all ARCnet cards

13.1.9. TokenRing

Take a look at the token ring web site here.

• 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 (more info)

• Olicom OC-3136, OC-3137, OC-3138, OC-3129 (more info)

• Madge Smart 100/16/4 PCI, 16/4 PCI Mk3, 16/4 PCI Mk2 (more info)

• Madge Presto PCI, 16/4 CardBus (more info)

• Syskonnect TR4/16(+) SK-4190 ISA, SK-4590 PCI, SK-4591 PCI (sktr)

13.1.10. FDDI

• DEC DEFEA (EISA) / DEFPA (PCI) (kernel 2.0.24 and later)

13.1.11. Amateur radio (AX.25)

• Gracilis PackeTwin

• Ottawa PI/PI2

• Most generic 8530 based HDLC boards

13.1.12. PCMCIA cards

• See the PCMCIA section.

13.2.1. 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)??

13.2.2. ISDN

• SpellCaster's Datacomute/BRI, Telecomute/BRI (ISA) (sc)

13.2.3. ATM

The following is likely to be an incomplete list. See the ATM on Linux project web site for more information.

• Efficient Networks ENI155p-MF and ENI155p-U5 155 Mbps ATM adapter

• SMC ATM Power155 9741D/F and 9746D/F 155 Mbps ATM adapter (uses the ENI driver)

• TI TNETA1570-based 155 Mbps ATM adapter by TU Chemnitz (also known as "UniNET 1570")

• ZeitNet ZN1221 and ZN1225 155 Mbps ATM adapter

• IDT NICStAR 77901/77903 155 and 25 Mbps ATM adapter (77201/77211 SAR)

• Marconi - ForeRunnerLE (25 and 155 Mbps; uses the IDT driver)

• Madge (Collage 25 and 155 Client/Server)

• All Interphase PCI (i)Chip ATM NICs (x575, x525, and x531)

• Marconi - ForeRunner PCA-200E

• IBM - TurboWays 25 (under developement)

• Interphase - 5515 (under development)

• Marconi - ForeRunnerHE (155 and 622 Mbps) (under development)

13.2.4. Wireless

• Proxim RangeLan2 7100 (ISA) / 630x (OEM mini-ISA) (driver)