[SLUG] Hardware recommendation

[Nicholas Lawrence <nlawren@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

</de-lurk>
I'm putting together a new Linux firewall box for bigpond cable and
am having fun trying to decide between two motherboards.

Doing the relevant googling and archive searches, I have ended up
with two choices:

1. An Asus board with an onboard Realtek 8139.
2. An Aopen board with an onboard Intel 82559.

The case I'm going to use requires a half-height NIC which will be
another 8139.

I noted in my research that the Realtek is not rated very highly
for
performance but appears well-supported.

The Intel 82559 is supposed to be very good for both speed and
support but a few notes in linux-kernel August last year suggested
problems with 2.4pre recognising onboard variants. There didn't
seem to be any followup after that.

For background - the addon card would be plugged into the cable
modem, the onboard into a 100 switch.

I know that the Aopen board would be the better buy but:
1. An additional $100+
2. The Asus board has a nice connector for a front monitoring
panel.

Apologies for the long-winded post - I guess my question boils down
to:

1. Is anyone having problems with 1 or 2 8139 cards in the same
machine?
2. The Intel seems to be a very popular choice - would it be worth
investing in (I know worth is relative but the difference is 128meg
of ram <g>).

Thanks for your help.

</re-lurk>

Nicholas



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