Preffered and compatible NICs for debian

[tstolber]

Hi

I have been having trouble getting my ethernet NIC to work for me.
I have a few different cards to try a NET2000 Clone, a 3COM and two intel PROs.

Is there are preffered and supported NIC that will be autoprobed and installed when I install linux from scratch?

Also - I am actualy using two NICS (intended to act as a proxy server using NAT) - I have heard that this can cause problems?

Any info on this would be great.

Cheers

[fpmchu]

Hi,

I've installed Debian several times on different computers (including laptops), and probably the least troubling hardware to get working is the NIC. That's mostly because many people want network during or even before the install process even starts. Most network cards that you pick up for $10-$20 or so would be auto-detected and auto-configured most of the time. What is your problem with getting the NIC to work?

The only thing that might cause problems with multiple NICs is IRQ conflicts. Linux can detect multiple NICs and allow you to configure them as long as there's no interrupt conflicts, which happens rarely and in special circumstances (which is fixed in the BIOS, not Linux). For reference, I've installed a Debian before with 5 PCI NICs acting as a router and everything works fine.

Frank

[jlgreer1]

I have an all included via motherboard. Debian easily recognized the builtin NIC.

I also installed an IDE NIC that I found in an old box. It is a noname card. It was also picked up by Debian. The NIC cards that are generally available are mature enough that any you use will probably work.

YMMV, Jeff

[Snide]

I don't think any cards will be detected by linux from scratch... I think you have to select the driver you want and compile it into the kernel. I could be wrong tho. I havn't gone thru it yet, just figured I would learn as much as I could from an installed system before I tried LFS.

[kkubasik]

I don't think any cards will be detected by linux from scratch... I think you have to select the driver you want and compile it into the kernel.

Partialy true, while a LFS system won't automaticaly compile modules, it will however load them at runtime. So as long as you have complied in support for the most common NIC's (or just generic drivers along with those from your vender) you would be fine.