Can there be an Ethernet Switch that doesn't work with Linux???

[Micha]

I had a problem actually with a realtek nic on a laptop I had. Everything seemed 
to negotiate ok, the link was up, but the nic wouldn't talk unless I forced in 
to 10Mb/s half duplex. It kept dropping the connection and renegotiating.

I also had a problem with a network cable that was mostly plugged in but not all 
the way. The linked seemed to be up and negotiated correctly but no data went 
across.

So it could be a hardware problem.

As for the switch, I never ran into a windows only switch, but theoretically it 
could happen, as windows has the ability to talk it's own network group protocol 
to discover machines.

I've also seen issues with dhcp servers sending information that windows 
deciphered correctly but linux didn't (presumably non-conforming dhcp).

Could it be that the switch is just killing the dhcp negotiation, what happens 
if you hardwire the addresses?

On 29/08/2010 11:50, shimi wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 11:40 AM, Nadav Har'El <nyh at math.technion.ac.il
> <mailto:nyh at math.technion.ac.il>> wrote:
>
>     On Sun, Aug 29, 2010, shimi wrote about "Re: Can there be an
>     Ethernet Switch that doesn't work with Linux???":
>
>      > It could be that there's an Ethernet negotiation problem, in such
>     a way that
>      > your MAC doesn't get registered on the switch (?). Not
>     necessarily a Linux
>      > problem. Maybe a NIC problem, or an Ethernet cable problem. Of
>     course that
>      > with a Hub that would work anyways, because a Hub broadcasts to
>     all ports,
>      > regardless of negotiation...
>
>     Like I said on a previous mail, the speed negotiation works. The
>     guess that
>     the switch has a bug and forgets my computer's MAC address makes
>     sense, but
>     how come it forgets the Linux computer's and remembers the Windows
>     one? :(
>
>
>
> I didn't mention 'speed' in my message.
>
> I don't have really deep knowledge in this, but what I do know (and of
> course stand to be corrected...), is that part of 'switching', when an
> Ethernet link goes up, both sides "announce" their MACs to the other
> end; This data is then stored, and used to decide to which physical port
> should the Ethernet frame be sent. That's what SWITCHing is all about.
>
> What I was suggesting is that something went wrong there, this is
> regardless to speed, MDI-X, etc. etc. and perhaps the wrong MAC was
> registered, or something similar. That would cause traffic destined to
> your MAC to not arrive to your port. Theoretically it fits ;)
>
> -- Shimi
>
>
>
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