From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 29 21:16:28 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E238106568A for ; Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:16:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@parodius.com) Received: from mx01.sc1.parodius.com (mx01.sc1.parodius.com [72.20.106.3]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C8278FC14 for ; Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:16:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@parodius.com) Received: by mx01.sc1.parodius.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 3536C1CC033; Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:16:28 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:16:28 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Torfinn Ingolfsen Message-ID: <20080429211628.GA72580@eos.sc1.parodius.com> References: <20080429120834.GB44737@eos.sc1.parodius.com> <20080429225855.c0bd48fe.torfinn.ingolfsen@broadpark.no> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080429225855.c0bd48fe.torfinn.ingolfsen@broadpark.no> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.17 (2007-11-01) Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Packet-corruption with re(4) X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:16:28 -0000 On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 10:58:55PM +0200, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: > On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:08:34 -0700 > Jeremy Chadwick wrote: > > > I'd recommend staying away from Realtek NICs. Pick up an Intel > > Pro/1000 GT or PT. Realtek has a well-known history of issues. > > I hear that story very often, so often that I almost think it's a fairy > tale. :-) > Most of the times the "RealTek NIC" story is told, it isn't backed up > with any references to evidence. Draw your own conclusions. First, I'd check out the BUGS section of the re(4) and rl(4) manpages. Second, I'd look at some of the CVS commit messages for said drivers; you'll find a plethora of bugs which aren't mentioned in the manpages either: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/pci/if_rl.c http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/re/if_re.c Third, have you tried reading any of their technical/designer docs for their ICs? They're horrible. Very hard to read, and lack concise descriptions. There's a lot of missing data. > I can only tell in my experience (several motherboards from > different manufacturers) with integrated RealTek NICs, both 10/100 and > 10/100/1000), RealTek NICs have mostly been working as advertised, > without trouble. And in my experiences, Realtek PHYs are absolutely horrible when it comes to auto-negotiation. I've only had the "pleasure" of dealing with Realtek trash on Windows, where occasionally you'll find a Changelog that comes with the driver set. They "play around" with auto-neg methodologies in the code quite often. If you go through the -stable archives, you'll see Realtek is continually complained about from an end-user perspective. The state of affairs is sad, since many consumer motherboard vendors use Realtek exclusively (I'm looking at you, Gigabyte). It's sad that most (not all) consumer boards lack Intel PHY/NICs these days. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |