*AUTO vs. *MANUAL Ethernet Settings (was: Ethernet Cards)

["Lukas Beeler" <lukas.beeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 29, 2008 3:05 PM,  <rob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> There's a lot to that.  You will have to check the switch settings.  You
> can try kicking up the settings on the i and see if it connects.  But
> conventional wisdom is that it's best to change the settings on both and
> not use "auto" anything.

I disagree. (Though, this discussionis probably more philosophical in
nature, and such everyone is "right")

Auto-Sense had it's share of problems when it was introduced (that was
eons ago).
Today, auto-sense is the most sensible way to configure your network.

Not using Auto-Sense will cause problems with unmanaged network
equipment (the 9.99 switches from MediaMarkt or some such).
Not using Auto-Sense will cause configuration nightmares when
replacing/upgrading switches.

I know many old-school networking guys that insist on using manually
configured links, but i've never had problems with larger networks
that were setup by younger people, and worked flawlessly. With Gigabit
now being deployed to end user links, using manually configured links
would become much more of an hassle, because you don't know which
devices will have what linkspeed (printers (10 or 100), newer printers
(1000), workstations (100 or 1000), appliances (10, 100 or 1000). With
autoconfig, all this hassle will disappear.

Or are there still people that don't use DHCP yet?