Ethernet adapters vary greatly in performance. In general the newer the design the better. Some very old cards like the 3Com 3c501 are only useful because they can be found in junk heaps for $5 a time. Be careful with clones, not all are good clones and bad clones often cause erratic lockups under Linux. Read the Ethernet HOWTO for detailed descriptions of various cards.
For ethernet cards with the DECchip DC21x4x family the "Tulip" driver is available. More information on this driver can be found at Donald Becker's site.
3Com 3c501 - "avoid like the plague" (3c501 driver)
3Com 3c503 (3c503 driver), 3c505 (3c505 driver), 3c507 (3c507 driver), 3c509/3c509B (ISA) / 3c579 (EISA)
3Com Etherlink III Vortex Ethercards (3c590, 3c592, 3c595, 3c597) (PCI), 3Com Etherlink XL Boomerang (3c900, 3c905) (PCI) and Cyclone (3c905B, 3c980) Ethercards (3c59x driver) and 3Com Fast EtherLink Ethercard (3c515) (ISA) (3c515 driver) Newer versions of this drivers are available at Donald Becker's site Avoid the 3c900 card when possible as the driver is not functioning well for this card.
3Com 3ccfe575 Cyclone Cardbus (3c59x driver)
3Com 3c575 series Cardbus (3c59x driver) (ALL PCMCIA ??)
AMD LANCE (79C960) / PCnet-ISA/PCI (AT1500, HP J2405A, NE1500/NE2100)
AT&T GIS WaveLAN
Allied Telesis AT1700
Allied Telesis LA100PCI-T
Allied Telesyn AT2400T/BT ("ne" module)
Ansel Communications AC3200 (EISA)
Apricot Xen-II / 82596
Cabletron E21xx
Cogent EM110
Crystal Lan CS8920, Cs8900 (driver)
Danpex EN-9400
DEC DE425 (EISA) / DE434/DE435 (PCI) / DE450/DE500 (DE4x5 driver)
DEC DE450/DE500-XA (dc21x4x) (Tulip driver)
DEC DEPCA and EtherWORKS
DEC EtherWORKS 3 (DE203, DE204, DE205)
DEC QSilver's (Tulip driver)
Digi International RightSwitch
DLink DE-220P, DE-528CT, DE-530+, DFE-500TX, DFE-530TX More information here
Fujitsu FMV-181/182/183/184
HP PCLAN (27245 and 27xxx series)
HP PCLAN PLUS (27247B and 27252A)
HP 10/100VG PCLAN (J2577, J2573, 27248B, J2585) (ISA/EISA/PCI) More information at Donald Becker's site
ICL EtherTeam 16i / 32 (EISA)
Intel EtherExpress
Intel EtherExpress Pro
KTI ET16/P-D2, ET16/P-DC ISA (work jumperless and with hardware-configuration options)
Macromate MN-220P (PnP or NE2000 mode)
NCR WaveLAN
NE2000/NE1000 (be careful with clones)
Netgear FA-310TX (Tulip chip)
New Media Ethernet
PureData PDUC8028, PDI8023
SEEQ 8005
SMC Ultra / EtherEZ (ISA)
SMC 9000 series
SMC PCI EtherPower 10/100 (Tulip driver)
SMC EtherPower II (epic100.c driver)
Sun LANCE adapters (kernel 2.2 and newer)
Sun Intel adapters (kernel 2.2 and newer)
Schneider & Koch G16
Western Digital WD80x3
Zenith Z-Note / IBM ThinkPad 300 built-in adapter
Znyx 312 etherarray (Tulip driver)
ISDN4Linux tools are available from here.
3Com Sonix Arpeggio (driver)
ASUSCOM Network Inc. ISDNLink 128K PC adapter (HiSax)
AVM A1 (HiSax)
AVM B1 (avmb1)
Combinet EVERYWARE 1000 ISDN (driver)
Compaq ISDN S0 (ISA) (HiSax)
Creatix PnP S0 (HiSax)
Dr. Neuhaus Niccy PnP/PCI (HiSax)
Dynalink IS64PH (HiSax)
Eicon.Diehl Diva 2.0 (ISA/PCI) (S0 and U interface, no PRO version) (HiSax)
Eicon.Diehl Diva Piccola (HiSax)
Elsa Microlink PCC-16, PCF, PCF-Pro, PCC-8 (HiSax)
ELSA QuickStep 1000/1000PCI/3000 (HiSax)
HFC-2BS0 based cards (HiSax)
IBM Active 2000 (ISA) (act2000)
ICN ISDN cards (icn)
Ith Kommunikationstechnik GmbH MIC 16 (ISA) (HiSax)
ITK ix1-micro Rev.2 (HiSax)
Octal PCBIT (pcbit)
Sedlbauer Speed Card (HiSax)
Teles SO-8/SO-16.0/SO-16.3/SO-16.3c/SO-16.4 and compatible ones (HiSax)
Traverse Technologie NETjet PCI S0 (HiSax)
USR Sportster internal TA (HiSax)
Cyclades-PC300 PCI Synchronous Adapters
Cyclades-PC300/RSV (1 or 2 ports, RS-232 and V.35, PCI)
Cyclades-PC300/X21 (1 or 2 ports, X.21, PCI)
Cyclades-PC300/TE (1 or 2 ports, T1 and E1, PCI)
Emerging Technologies Inc Synchronous Adapters
ET/5025 (1 port, 8-bit ISA)
ET/5025-16 (2 ports, 16-bit ISA)
ET/5025-25 (2 ports, 16-bit ISA)
ET/5025pq (4 ports, PCI)
Cyclades-PC300 PCI Synchronous Adapters
Cyclades-PC300/RSV (1 or 2 ports, RS-232 and V.35, PCI)
Cyclades-PC300/X21 (1 or 2 ports, X.21, PCI)
Cyclades-PC300/TE (1 or 2 ports, T1 and E1, PCI)
Emerging Technologies Inc Synchronous Adapters
ET/5025 (1 port, 8-bit ISA)
ET/5025-16 (2 ports, 16-bit ISA)
ET/5025-25 (2 ports, 16-bit ISA)
ET/5025pq (4 ports, PCI)
Cyclades-PC300 PCI Synchronous Adapters
Cyclades-PC300/RSV (1 or 2 ports, RS-232 and V.35, PCI)
Cyclades-PC300/X21 (1 or 2 ports, X.21, PCI)
Cyclades-PC300/TE (1 or 2 ports, T1 and E1, PCI)
For more information on Linux and use of the parallel port, go to the Linux Parallel Port Home Page ( alternate location). Check Appendix C for a complete list of supported parallel port devices (excluding printers).
SLIP/CSLIP/PPP (serial port)
EQL (serial IP load balancing)
PLIP (parallel port) - using ``LapLink cable'' or bi-directional cable
Take a look at the token ring web site here.
3Com 3C619/B/C Tokenlink 16/4 (ibmtr)
3Com 3C319 Velocity ISA (ibmtr)
IBM PCI token ring adapter
IBM Wake on Lan TR adapter
IBM 16/4 TR PCI Adapter 2, Adapter 2 Wake on Lan, Adapter 2 Wake on Lan Special
IBM High Speedd 100/16/4 token ring
IBM ISA 16/4, MCA 16/4 (ibmtr)
IBM Tropic chipset cards
Olicom RapidFire 3139, 3140, 3141, 3540 (more info)
Olicom OC-3136, OC-3137, OC-3138, OC-3129 (more info)
Madge Smart 100/16/4 PCI, 16/4 PCI Mk3, 16/4 PCI Mk2 (more info)
Madge Presto PCI, 16/4 CardBus (more info)
Syskonnect TR4/16(+) SK-4190 ISA, SK-4590 PCI, SK-4591 PCI (sktr)
Racal-Interlan NI5210 (i82586 Ethernet chip). Improved support in kernel 2.2 and newer
Racal-Interlan NI6510 (am7990 lance chip). Starting with kernel 1.3.66 more than 16Mb Ram is supported.
Racal-Interlan PCI card (AMD PC net chip 97c970)??
3Com 3C359 Velocity XL PCI
3Com 3C339 Velocity PCI
IBM PCI LANStreamer, MCA LANStreamer token ring
Intel TokenExpress PRO, TokenExpress 16/4
Sysconnect / Schneider & Koch Token Ring cards (all of them)