Re: Pocket Adaptor support?

[Ken Yap <ken@nhj.nlc.net.au>]

>> Hmm, it should not be incredibly to write a PLIP adapter for
>> etherboot. Admittedly, this is a pretty strange idea, but it is
>> probably the easiest way to bootstrap a Linux kernel onto a
>> CD-ROM-less laptop.
>
>This touches on two issues. Firstly, actual booting via the parport
>(be it PLIP or an EtherNet pocket adaptor). The second is bandwidth
>issues. Can someone tell me what the bandwidth of one of these parport
>EtherNet adaptors is? PLIP bandwidth is quite low: only 50 kBytes/sec
>at best.

Parport Ethernet adaptors usually use the ECP/EPP mode of the port and
can get better throughput than PLIP and also pose less of a load on the
CPU. But they are not up to main bus speeds. I think I measured one of
the Xircom ones at 200kB or so. Incidentally there is no Linux support
for the Xircom parallel port adaptors, so I assume you have one of those
generic Taiwan ones or the DLink 600 (?) if you intend to use Linux.