Articles in the Hardware category

  1. Belkin Gigabit USB 2.0 Adapter Works Perfectly With Linux

    Wed 08 December 2010

    My ISP upgraded my internet connection speed to a whopping 120 Mbit. I am using a mac mini as my internet router. As you may be aware, the mini has only one network interface, so I added a second interface using a USB to ethernet adapter. This adapter was limited to 100 Mbit, so to make full use of the 120 Mbit connection, I had to upgrade this adapter.

    I took the gamble and bought the Belkin Gigabit USB 2.0 adapter. I could not figure out if it would work with Linux, but on the box it officially supports Mac OS X, which is always a good sign.

    image

    This adapter is recognized by Debian Linux without a hitch:

    Mini:~# ethtool -i eth0
    driver: asix
    version: 14-Jun-2006
    firmware-version: ASIX AX88178 USB 2.0 Ethernet
    bus-info: usb-0000:00:1d.7-5
    

    lsusb output:

    Bus 005 Device 004: ID 050d:5055 Belkin Components F5D5055 Gigabit Network
    Adapter [AX88xxx]
    

    I did not test the actuall performance of this adapter, but it at least goes beyond the 100 Mbit (it does 120 Mbit at least). I expect it to be limited at say max 300 Mbit, being constrained by the maximum speed of USB 2.0.

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  2. Debian Lenny and Dell R410 Network Card Not Supported

    Fri 20 August 2010

    For those who are running Debian Lenny and want to order the new Dell R410 server, beware!

    There is no safe solution to get Debian Lenny working with the on-board Broadcom network cards. A fairly recent kernel is required. Basically, you will have to install back-ported kernels, more recent modules and thus must violate the reasons why you were running Debian Lenny in the first place.

    There is one solution, although it may not be an option: run VMware on the hardware and run Debian Lenny in a virtual machine. I think that in most cases, this will be sufficient for many cases and it has all the benefits of virtualisation and the stability of Debian Lenny.

    It is unfortunate that Broadcom or Dell do not support Debian.

    If you do have an easy and quite safe solution to get the Broadcom network cards working with Debian Lenny, please drop a note.

    Beware though: the H200 and H700 RAID controllers are also not supported by Debian Lenny.

    dell-s300-h200-and.html

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