The usual story: cards from the same manufacturer, with
the same part number, DID work if bought a year or more
ago; but recently bought cards would NOT -- even if they
are specifically approved by the Hardware HOWTO.
Some of these were "cheap NE2000 clones". But the same
story applied to all. Typically, there would be no
indication on the outside of the package that the
hardware had changed. For a Linksys Ether16, for
example, the outside of a new package said simply
"Ether16", without modification.
But the card itself looked very different from an Ether16
bought a year or so ago. In fact, it looked much more
like a current E2000 clone than it looked like the
earlier Ether16. (The story with the E2000 was similar:
the design sold under that label a year or two ago worked
with Red Hat, still works, while recently bought cards
would not.)
(Perhaps I should add: for the Ether16 we recently bought,
there is a photograph on the outside of the box, from
which you might be able to deduce that the design has
changed. But I wouldn't rely on it: in our case, the
card inside is not identical to the one photographed.)
(Maybe I should also add, though I doubt that it's
relevant: the old E2000 that's still running is running
under Red Hat 4.1, while our more recent tests have been
with 4.2 or 5.0.)
Has anyone had success with a design -- any design --
currently available ???