CentOS - Feb 2011 - PCI ethernet card for CentOS

I need to get a second ethernet card for my HP Proliant CentOS server,
to attach a LinkSys WRT54GL router to.

I see that there are many Realtek RTL8169S gigabit cards
going for a song on eBay.
Is anyone using one of these under CentOS?
Do they work OK?
(I used to have a couple of Realtek cards - not gigabit -
and they worked fine.)

Or does anyone have a strong recommendation for other cards?
Any advice or suggestions gratefully received.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

On 26/02/11 15:38, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I need to get a second ethernet card for my HP Proliant CentOS server,
> to attach a LinkSys WRT54GL router to.
>
> I see that there are many Realtek RTL8169S gigabit cards
> going for a song on eBay.
> Is anyone using one of these under CentOS?
> Do they work OK?
> (I used to have a couple of Realtek cards - not gigabit -
> and they worked fine.)
>
> Or does anyone have a strong recommendation for other cards?
> Any advice or suggestions gratefully received.
I really recommend you something else than these "Realcrap" cards. 
They might
work fine in many settings, but you never really know.  If you google around, 
you'll find plenty of stories where these cards are really unpredictable,
and
my own experiences are also not good.

You can probably find pretty decent Intel EtherExpress PRO/100 cards, which 
really has an incomparable quality.  As you're talking about the WRT54GL,
you
don't need to think about 1Gbit cards.  Which makes the PRO/100 cards
optimal.

Just my 2 cents.


kind regards,

David Sommerseth

> I see that there are many Realtek RTL8169S gigabit cards
>going for a song on eBay.

I've always liked and used Realtek cards, and I use the RTL8169S in my
servers. However, the RTL8169S has one problem: overheating. If you buy any,
make sure they include a heatsink. Those without a heatsink are prone to
locking up if the temperatures inside your case get too high.