Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 17:33:44 -0500 (CDT) From: Chris Dillon <cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us> To: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG, jfb@visi.com Subject: Re: New system for FreeBSD -- pls advise Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0007071709080.33618-100000@mail.wolves.k12.mo.us> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.000707120030.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
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On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, John Baldwin wrote: > > On 06-Jul-00 Chris Dillon wrote: > > On Thu, 6 Jul 2000 jfb@visi.com wrote: > > > >> Hello, all, > >> > >> I'm looking at getting a brand new box at home, and want to make sure > >> that I don't end up with components that will preclude me from using > >> my OS of choice. > >> > >> Currently, my hardware selections are as follows: > >> > >> 3Com 3c905b ethernet > > > > One word: yuck. Get an Intel EtherExpress PRO 10/100B. > > Why yuck? Both of these ethernet cards work quite well. I've just had very bad experiences with the cards in the Windows arena. 3COM also thinks they should charge more money for products that aren't even close to par with competitors, yet consumers seem very ignorant of this and I like to point it out. Try comparing the price/performance/features of a 3COM SuperStack II 3300, an HP ProCurve 4000M or 2424M, and a Cisco Catalyst 2924M-XL. The 3COM SuperStack II costs more than either of those other switches, yet doesn't even come close to the performance/features of the other two. As for the NICs, everywhere I look the 3COM NIC costs more than the Intel, yet the Intel NIC has added advantatges such as WOL, an integrated boot ROM, and much slimmer Windows drivers that work for the whole NIC family. Ok, thats enough... I've probably enraged some 3COM-hugging hippies now. :-) P.S. - I'm not an Intel-hugging hippie, its just that I've found the Intel 8255x family of NICs to be the most reliable and least frustrating of the many different NICs I encounter on a daily basis. So much so that every system we buy now comes with one. -- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet. For Intel x86 and Alpha architectures. ( http://www.freebsd.org ) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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