Re: the BEST net card for obsd (IMHO)

[Marco S Hyman <marc@snafu.org>]

 > 	I care.  I am currently looking at the driver for my ne2000 card,
 > /usr/src/src/sys/dev/pci/if_ne_pci.c, right now.  I own a linksys pcmpc100
 > that always whines about buffer ring overflows and I would like to fix
 > that problem.  I have never worked with drivers before, but have enough C

I believe the standard NE2K card has a ring buffer that holds something
like 16 frames.  The minimum ethernet frame, including preamble and
FCS, is 576 bits.   At 10 Mbit/s that 57.6 microseconds per frame.
16 back-to-back frames happens in just under 1 millisecond.   Unless
you can GUARANTEE that the combination of ALL higher priority
interrupts never take more than 1 millisecond to process you ARE
going to get buffer ring overflows.  There is nothing you can do
to the driver to change that.

That's (another reason why) why NE2k cards suck.

// marc