There are no plans to produce a Linux driver for the older Tachyon-based FibreXpress cards. Yes, a FibreXpress PCI card in a PC running Windows NT will work with a PMC card mounted on a Single Board Computer Running VxWorks. Considerations about each of the media types are presented below. You use copper for short distances between nodes or adapters. Copper is specified to work up to 30 meters depending on the cable type and connector used.
Copper cables are typically lower cost than optical cables.
Thus copper cables are used when interconnecting over short distances within a rack or between racks of equipment. DB-9 is used by drive chassis and RAID manufacturers. The 1x3 copper media interface was designed by and has been used by Systran for copper FC adapters since the beginning of our FC products. There are two separate cables - one for receive and one for transmit. The type of cable used is 150-ohm twinaxial cable.