forcedeth problems (was: Ubuntu a poor choice for servers)

[David Abrahams]

Picking up this thread from long ago...

on Tue Jul 11 2006, David Kempe <dave-AT-solutionsfirst.com.au> wrote:

>>>> Anyway - that motherboard you have has got some issue. The
>>>> onboard nvidia chipset is crap, mostly because the reverse
>>>> engineered forcedeth drivers are seriously problematic. I have a
>>>> few of those boards in servers, and have ended up with different
>>>> network cards in them.
>>
>> Could you give more details?  If I have to complain to the person who
>> sold me the hardware (knowing I'd be running linux on it), I want to
>> be able to justify myself.
>
> the forcedeth driver is reverse engineering, much like the nv driver
> versus the nvidia binary driver. I think you could get the nvidia
> binary drivers to work with the nvidia nforce chipset/nic, but am
> certain thats not going to play nice with xen (at least not until xen
> becomes a subarch).
> we have had crazy issues with forcedeth cards - like lockups where the
> card stops tx/rxing data completely, and only way to fix it is to pull
> the power cord, a reboot doesn't fix it. its related to acpi stuff
> mostly. also the driver is slow to get link, which causes problems for
> init scripts and it generally crap, not supporting features I like to
> use like ethtool or mii-registers.
> I don't doubt for a second its going to get better, reverse
> engineering is always a work in progress, so maybe its just a matter
> of time. But frankly, if nvidia just damn opensourced decent drivers
> it would be a whole lot better. Its a freaking network card for crying
> out loud (although I know is all integrated in the chipset - probably
> to reduce the cost).
> the better tyan mobos have broadcom nics in them, and AMD chipsets,
> all very well supported.

Well, after upgrading from Edgy to Feisty and actually trying to *use*
this server for something that would need consistent network access,
I'm seeing something like "lockups where the card stops tx/rxing data
completely," although for me, a reboot fixes it.  Luckily enough, I
have two ethernet ports on this machine and I can switch, but that
only serves to double the (way too short) uptime I get.

Does anyone know if forcedeth has fixes for Gutsy, or should I just
give up and buy a card?

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com