From owner-freebsd-questions  Wed Nov 19 17:24:48 1997
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Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 17:24:38 -0800 (PST)
From: Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu>
Reply-To: Doug White <dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu>
To: Dave Bodenstab <imdave@mcs.net>
cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Is NE2000 network card OK?
In-Reply-To: <199711192319.RAA05522@imdave.pr.mcs.net>
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On Wed, 19 Nov 1997, Dave Bodenstab wrote:

> 
> I just got an additional PC and I now want to network them on
> the cheap.  I see that ISA NE2000 compatible cards are selling
> for under $20 and I was wondering if it would be a reasonable
> way to go.   This will be my first venture into the world of
> networks, so...
> 
>   - is the NE2000 adequately supported?

Quite.

>   - are there any drawbacks to this card?

They're slow because they generate a lot of interrupts over a card with
more buffer space e.g. a 3com 3c509.  

>   - if the card claims that it supports the Novell drivers,
>     is it likely that the FreeBSD driver would support it
>     also?

If it says NE2000 on it the ed driver will do the rest.

> PS.  Am running 2.2.5 on the newer PC, 2.0.5 on the older.  The
> release notes for 2.0.5 and 2.2.5 say that the NE2000 is a supported
> interface.

I wouldn't be surprised if even FreeBSD 1.x supported it.  The NE2000
standard has been around for literally ages.

Doug White                              | University of Oregon  
Internet:  dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu    | Residence Networking Assistant
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite    | Computer Science Major