Linux Out, FreeBSD In

So FreeBSD is better supported by that particular network card - how ironic. I'd have taken the easy route and swapped nics. They are very cheap nowdays.

Our linux servers here at the office, with fully supported nics, are going on 1600 days uptime.

That crossed my mind, too. Throw a gigabit NIC card in there and you're good to go.

Except for three things: (1) I don't have a spare NIC to put in; (2) swapping out the Ethernet on the motherboard isn't an option, it can only be disabled in BIOS; and (3) the 100Mb switch kind of limits that traffic from a GigE connection.

I've bought more than a few PCI Ethernet boards for PCs (I've had a lot of old iron). They're generally

@Steven - Yikes, it looks like your network card died in mid-sentence!

Ha! Actually I AM having problems with the Ethernet port on my Lenovo G555 laptop. Every once in awhile it drops out. The lights blink but it's not available to the OS. I fixed it the same way both times, I pulled the battery and opened the memory door (which is huge and allows for cleaning of the CPU fan -- too bad I didn't have a can of air handy). That seems to "reset" the NIC (It's an Atheros 10/100 MB ... no gigabit for this el-cheapo machine).

What I meant to say is that I've bought more than a few PCI Ethernet cards, and the 10/100 models are not only less than $10, they're often less than $5 at places like Fry's. And the generics are generally Realtek chips, if I remember correctly.

I think you can get a gigabit card for $10 or $20 these days. If the box and your sanity mean anything to you, it's well worth it.

Perusing the FreeBSD source for the RTL8139 driver, I found just below the standard BSD license a statement from the author to the effect that the 8139 chip "brings new meaning to the term 'low end.'"

So Linux is not alone in dealing with RTL8139 frustrations.

I've run a few of these, and they seem to work w/o trouble.

Are you using the 8139 chips (using the 8139too driver) or the 8139C+ chips (using the 8139cp driver)? The latter have some "fixes", similar to Windows "fixes", to make them behave the way they should have been designed to begin with.

Then again, I've got a major rant boiling in my mind about the useless "WORKSFORME" status in Bugzilla. A "COULDNOTDUPLICATE" status is more well-mannered, and much less of a put-down. Someone else saying "it works for me" has no bearing on the situation that I am stuck with.

Sorry, Steven, but that's the third time I've gotten that kind of feedback in the past ~48 hrs. From where I sit, it's 3 too many times.

I have a laptop that uses 8139too ... The keyboard, sound module, touchpad and optical drive all died ... the NIC keeps on going. I've probably got three others with the same chip in various states of repair.

I'm having more problems with a very recent Atheros Ethernet chip (can't remember the model number) that drops in and out and doesn't work in FreeBSD and OpenBSD without tweaking.

I could just be lucky. In this regard. My lamentations about ATI Mobility Radeon 4200 HD have raised nary an eyebrow, so I know exactly how you feel.

Ubuntu has special chronic RTL8139 problems. I have no idea what they're doing differently, but you never know when an update will break or improve it. I don't have that same drama with Debian or Arch. Though I'm not letting Realtek off the hook, sheesh it's not like wi-fi is all new and experimental.

So any idea why it does work with FreeBSD and not with Linux? Is the FreeBSD driver really better?

Oftentimes the BSD drivers are better. Not always. In the case of OpenBSD, their focus on packet-filtering/traffic-shaping/load-balancing/routing applications means they're very keen to get network-interface hardware working as well as possible. And the BSDs are very good about sharing code, so any time one has something, it's only a matter of time before it gets ported.