Picking up this thread from long ago... on Tue Jul 11 2006, David Kempe <dave-AT-solutionsfirst.com.au> wrote:
>>>> Anyway - that motherboard you have has got some issue. The >>>> onboard nvidia chipset is crap, mostly because the reverse >>>> engineered forcedeth drivers are seriously problematic. I have a >>>> few of those boards in servers, and have ended up with different >>>> network cards in them. >> >> Could you give more details? If I have to complain to the person who >> sold me the hardware (knowing I'd be running linux on it), I want to >> be able to justify myself. > > the forcedeth driver is reverse engineering, much like the nv driver > versus the nvidia binary driver. I think you could get the nvidia > binary drivers to work with the nvidia nforce chipset/nic, but am > certain thats not going to play nice with xen (at least not until xen > becomes a subarch). > we have had crazy issues with forcedeth cards - like lockups where the > card stops tx/rxing data completely, and only way to fix it is to pull > the power cord, a reboot doesn't fix it. its related to acpi stuff > mostly. also the driver is slow to get link, which causes problems for > init scripts and it generally crap, not supporting features I like to > use like ethtool or mii-registers. > I don't doubt for a second its going to get better, reverse > engineering is always a work in progress, so maybe its just a matter > of time. But frankly, if nvidia just damn opensourced decent drivers > it would be a whole lot better. Its a freaking network card for crying > out loud (although I know is all integrated in the chipset - probably > to reduce the cost). > the better tyan mobos have broadcom nics in them, and AMD chipsets, > all very well supported. Well, after upgrading from Edgy to Feisty and actually trying to *use* this server for something that would need consistent network access, I'm seeing something like "lockups where the card stops tx/rxing data completely," although for me, a reboot fixes it. Luckily enough, I have two ethernet ports on this machine and I can switch, but that only serves to double the (way too short) uptime I get. Does anyone know if forcedeth has fixes for Gutsy, or should I just give up and buy a card? -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting http://www.boost-consulting.com -- ubuntu-server mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam
