[PLUG] Driver for FA-330?

[Aaron Burt]

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003, Rich Shepard wrote:
<snip>
>   I've not yet fired up the box; just put it together yesterday. My FA-310
> cards use the tulip driver and I'm trying to find out about the 331.

Did some looking (I like detective work.)  FA331 appears to be an OEM
version of the FA311; from the signs and portents, I'm guessing the FA330
is the low-profile version.

The one FA331 driver I found was for some sort of National chipset.  The
FA311 is based on the DP83815, which uses Linux's "natsemi" driver.

> According to Ed's post, Slackware-9.0 does not have a good implementation of
> the tulip driver. Or, something else that causes problems.

I'd guess the second; recent kernels have decent Tulip drivers IIRC.

>   After fighting for several days with a Zonet pcmcia NIC, I just want stuff
> that works. What I "save" on product purchase I lose many times over in
> futzing with the machine trying to get it to work.

Ayuh.  Even if you have the particular skillset available, it's rarely
worth it.  At my last job, I couldn't believe how much time and hassle it
cost us when a vendor changed network or SCSI boards on us.

Since hardware expert was one of the hats I wore, I put a lot of effort
into vetting purchase orders--at least until Purchasing got tired of
having an extra, cantankerous link in the chain.  After that, I had to
support whatever came in, which was much less hassle for them. ;)

                -----------------------------------

So, in other words, use the "natsemi" driver.

BTW, it *really* helps if you provide info on the big chip(s) on the
board and/or lspci output.