Re: [school-discuss] Success!

[jkinz@rcn.com]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2002 at 04:29:13PM -0500, Dave Prentice wrote:
>     I have a problem that may run in a similar vein. Last year part of
> my school was online. During the summer the building was partially
> rewired, with some of the old cat5 cables replaced with fiber optics.
> However, the contractor didn't finish the job. They left a fiber optic
> cable going in and scores of cat5s coming out of several wiring
> closets, but they never got around to installing switches, hubs, or
> whatever you want to call them to connect the ins to the outs. That
> contractor is now gone, and my school is almost completely offline.
>     Does anybody know if there is a fiber optic NIC I could install in
> a freesco, or in anything else for that matter? It may be months (if
> ever) before the school district gets around to buying and installing
> the switches.
> Thanks,
> Dave Prentice
> prentice@instruction.com


The Linux documentation project always has the HARDWARE HOW-TO at
URL: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/nic.html

 From the FDDI section (which only had one entry - this one):

      DEC DEFEA (EISA) / DEFPA (PCI) (kernel 2.0.24 and later)
Since this card is from "DEC" which is now mostly part of Compaq
(and some part of Intel) and Compaq is now part of HP I guess that 
one bet would be to call HP (or better yet visit their website)
and see what they have for FDDI NICs. 

On the other hand IBM: definitely had FDDI cards that run on LINUX PC's
but you have to read ...very... carefully......  to see it.

Look at the product matrices on this web page and you'll see Linux
mentioned as a compatible OS.  The Server being mentioned here
is an IBM PC.  the cards go into PCI Bus slots naturally.

http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/MIGR-4QLMN7.html?lang=en_US&page=brand&brand=IBM+Options&doctype=&subtype=Cat

Sorry I can't do better than that.

-- 
Jeff Kinz, Director, Emergent Research,  Hudson, MA.  "jkinz@ultranet.com" 
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"jkinz@rcn.com" copyright 2002.  Use is restricted. Any use is an 
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