We're planning to use a Microchip 9500a in our project. We'll be soldering that chip, a USB Hub chip, and an RJ45 connector to the board that our SOPine sits on. So our 100Mbps ethernet will be on the USB Bus like tllim said, but not a separate dongle that needs to be plugged in.
I'm sure there's other USB ethernet chips, but we've tested this one and found it's already supported by the kernel used in the Xubuntu image for SOPINE. The MAC addresses changes every bootup (if you don't include and program a SPI eeprom for the 9500a to talk to). We're currently looking for a software fix for this.*
*EDIT
Use udev to rename the USB network adapter. I used
Edit /etc/network/interfaces to set a specific MAC based on the interface name. Ex:
Remember to mind the universal vs local MAC rules. A local MAC should have the 2-bit set in the first octet. Easy way is just set the first octet to 02.
I'm sure there's other USB ethernet chips, but we've tested this one and found it's already supported by the kernel used in the Xubuntu image for SOPINE. The MAC addresses changes every bootup (if you don't include and program a SPI eeprom for the 9500a to talk to). We're currently looking for a software fix for this.*
*EDIT
Use udev to rename the USB network adapter. I used
Code:
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="smsc95xx", NAME="lan"Edit /etc/network/interfaces to set a specific MAC based on the interface name. Ex:
Code:
auto lan
iface lan inet dhcp
hwaddress ether 02:88:77:66:55:01Remember to mind the universal vs local MAC rules. A local MAC should have the 2-bit set in the first octet. Easy way is just set the first octet to 02.