# ethernet card

## steelrose

i will get a adsl line soon and i want to get suggestions for ethernet cards?which one will work best with gentoo?

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## ElCondor

This is more a kernel question  :Wink: 

I normally use 3COM905C, Intel EtherexpressPro100 or (for lower funded people) Realtek 8139 based cards. Those work fine, network perfomance is at maximum once you have more than 400MHz (meaning having 10MB/s constantly).

for adsl a 10MBit card will be more than enough, somthing with a Realtek 8029 chip (ne2000-pci compatible) will do fine. take a look at the kernel-sources (make menuconfig -> network device support -> Ethernet) for a complete list supported network adaptors!

* ElCondor pasa *

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## rac

An additional point to consider alongside ElCondor's suggestions: if you have a relatively small case, you may have airflow problems around your PCI cards, especially modern video cards which have their own on-board fans and generate a considerable amount of heat.

I have found some Realtek-based cards that are physically very small, and have been able to improve airflow by placing them in the slot next to video cards.

I would also add that because there are many subtly different varieties of the DEC tulip chip, if you consider purchasing a card that uses this chip, make sure that some other people have had success using that particular card in Linux, and follow their advice about driver versions exactly, rather than assuming that all tulips are created equal.

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## steelrose

what i must do to setup adsl following the gentoo installation guide?

i mean the guide refers to adsl or only with t1 t3 connections?do i need the pppoe package to setup adsl from stage1?

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## ElCondor

This depends  :Smile:  in some countries adsl uses pppoe, some use pptp or pppoa. I only got a link to an austrian adsl howto - it's in german, sorry. 

* ElCondor pasa *

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## pjp

I have an SMC card that has worked without problems.

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## steelrose

well my provider is offering pppoa protocol.can i install gentoo from stage 1 using this protocol?

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## steelrose

Just find out that my ISP uses PPPoA protocol with DHCP server.will i succeed to install gentoo from scratch?

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