Re: What Fiber Ethernet Adapter cards work w/ RedHat

[Bill Carlson <wcarlson cc-cci net>]

On Tue, 6 Apr 1999, Josh Kuperman wrote:

> I want to start trying some things with linking Hubs to my Linux machine
> with Fiber instead of 10baseT and Cat 5. (I've heard it is supposed to be
> faster.) What fiber adapters work with Linux? Currently we are using a
> 10baseT hub that's connected to a Radiant fiber hub (are they still called
> hubs) with an adapter. I was thinking of getting two Allied Telesyn's
> AT-2560FX/ST fiber adapters and sticking my Linux machine physically
> between the existing fiber hub and an EtherFast 24port 10/100 Hub (it looks
> cheap and warehouse.com). 
> 
> Will this work or will I have all the headaches I had trying to get 10baseT
> cards to function when I was first starting to use Linux?

What makes you think fiber would be faster? The only difference in the
Ethernet world is the distance you can run, fiber can generally be run 412
meters (half duplex) versus copper's 100m. Now a full duplex connection
would give you twice the bandwidth, but you can do that on either media.

Fiber is of course much more expensive to implement, but either way, Linux
doesn't really care which media is in use. Just make sure you get a
supported NIC.

Thanks,

Bill Carlson
Carlson Computer Services