[TriLUG] 1394 card for a Linux box

[Joseph Mack NA3T]

On Thu, 20 Nov 2008, Tanner Lovelace wrote:

> Intrex carries add-on 1394 cards.  Go to 
> http://www.intrex.com/parts/parts.aspx and select 
> "Interface Cards" then "I/O Cards".  A 4 port PCI 1394 
> card is listed as $10.99 before the TriLUG discount.

I'd forgotten about the TriLUG discount.

IEEE1394 is more standardised than is USB and most cards 
should work with Linux. There is a page on the Linux 
IEEE1394 devel website showing the hardware status of 
various cards/chipsets.

However Intrex doesn't attempt to determine if their 
hardware is Linux compatible - they usually say "it should 
work with Linux, if it doesn't bring it back and we'll 
refund the money". They always say "it should work with 
Linux", when they obviously have no idea.

I've bought both USB and IEEE1394 PCI cards from Intrex. 
They all are some brand I've never heard of, but contain 
recognisable chipsets. Some of them work with Linux and some 
of them don't. I remember once after finding a USB card that 
worked coming back shortly thereafter (maybe a week later) 
to buy 3 more. When I got them home, although the box was 
the same, the cards were obviously different and didn't work 
with Linux. Intrex refunded the money, which was nice, but 
it was a bit of a nuisance.

I can't imagine with the fairly limited range of hardware 
they carry, that a sample of each couldn't be tested out on 
a dual boot machine, before hanging it on the wall. I talked 
to the manager about this once day to find he has no say in 
the hardware they carry. Someone higher up handles that.

Joe

-- 
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!