Maybe they use the same stuff maybe not. Remember it’s not the communication with the outside world that matters, it’s the communication with the OS. If that guys network adapter doesn’t talk to the OS the same way network cards did 7 years ago then XP isn’t going to be able to handle it.
I saw that, and asked if it was the same adapter the guy had. If it’s not the same adapter then it means nothing.
Yes, and onboard NICs communicate with the OS in exactly the same way that NIC cards do, they are just on the internal bus rather than the bus that the cards plug into.
This is actually rather easy to determine. I have an antique Pentium II 450 with an onboard Digital ethernet adapter and a PCI NIC with a much newer Digital chipset. The onboard NIC is obviously the same age as the mobo. The PCI NIC is about 6 months old.
OpenBSD shows them as de0 and de1. dmesg shows one on PCI bus 0 and one on PCI bus 1.
I saw that, and asked if it was the same adapter the guy had. If it’s not the same adapter then it means nothing.
Well, maybe so maybe no. If the cards are the same (I don't know, he didn't give enough information) then the point is proven. But even if the cards aren't, the machine is using a industry standard NIC from a major box supplier. The OS should support it, at least in some degraded mode.
It would be different if it was some rare, obscure hardware like a Token Ring card or an ATM card. But it's an Ethernet card. And Ethernet is Ethernet.