From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jun 1 14: 4:37 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from xylan.com (postal.xylan.com [208.8.0.248]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 66E7C150AD for ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 14:04:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from mailhub.xylan.com by xylan.com (8.8.7/SMI-SVR4 (xylan-mgw 2.2 [OUT])) id OAA29435; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 14:03:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from omni.xylan.com by mailhub.xylan.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4 (mailhub 2.1 [HUB])) id OAA02531; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 14:03:51 -0700 Received: from softweyr.com (dyn2.utah.xylan.com) by omni.xylan.com (4.1/SMI-4.1 (xylan engr [SPOOL])) id AA24829; Tue, 1 Jun 99 14:03:49 PDT Message-Id: <37544AB4.C65E5DB8@softweyr.com> Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 15:03:48 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en Mime-Version: 1.0 To: Dennis Cc: Jason Thorpe , hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: xl driver for 3Com References: <199906011650.MAA24039@etinc.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Dennis wrote: > > At 08:00 AM 6/1/99 -0700, you wrote: > >On Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:09:59 +0200 > > Alexander Maret wrote: > > > > > At first I tried my FreeBSD machine and I got about 800-900 collisions. > > > Second I booted on the same machine linux and I only got 4 (!) collisions. > > > >It's also possible that Linux isn't counting the collisions properly. > > > > > I have no problem with thousands or millions of collissions, as long as > > > they don't crash my computer. I just want a running system. > > > >Collisions don't cause your system to crash. If this is happening, > >something else is at fault (though that something else may be an > >unrelated problem in the Ethernet driver). > > If your nic driver chains packets (such that there is no time in between) > you will see good throughput from the box but your overall network > performance will suffer. Overall network performance will be much greater until the collision rate raises high enough to lower it. The only way to determine this is to try it, unless you have some pretty sophisticated network modelling tools. > A PCI card with continueous traffic can completely > hog your lan (particularly at 10Mb/s)... Even at 100Mb/s with good cards and moderatly fast computers. "Hogging your LAN" is spelled the same as "getting 100% throughput" around here, and is considered a GOOD thing. I fail to see how obtaining 200Mb/s (full-duplex) throughput on a $50 lan adapter is a bad thing. > which can cause a lot more > collisions on your network as other devices will not have access until the > hog is finished sending. For "Fairness" gaps in between frames are better > as you approach capacity of your wire. Or just do yourself a favor and buy a good switch, which avoids the collision problems neatly. Ethernet doesn't have to be a shared media system. I can help if you want suggestions. ;^) -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message