LinkSys EtherFast 10/100 LAN Card

[Hans Chalupsky]

>>>>> David Rose <drose@wdi.disney.com> writes:

> I bought this card today, mainly because the box proudly claimed that
> the card was supported by Linux.  Any manufacturer that devotes ink to
> reporting Linux connectivity should be rewarded, in my opinion.

Only if they backup their claim with some support.  LinkSys certainly
lacks that.  I also fell for their box :-)

> Sadly, I've thus far been unsuccessful in getting it to talk to me
> outside of Windows world.  (It does work fine in Windows.)  I'm
> running v0.90 of tulip.c.  

> As soon as I try to ifconfig it, the machine locks up.  On a hunch, I
> reinserted some code from an older version of tulip.c into
> tulip_interrupt():

Since v0.90 my LinkSys EtherFast Cardbus card actually worked on my
ThinkPad 770 running Redhat 5.0 with a 2.0.35 kernel (with v0.89 it
worked for a while and then the swapper always panicked).  Turns out
that my excitement wasn't quite warranted yet, since once in a while it
still locks up similar to yours when I insert it (i.e., the last entry
in /var/log/messages is `ifconfig ...').  I haven't been able to
detect a particular pattern though, but there seems to be some kind of
race condition, or maybe it's related to the current state of the
network, I don't know.  If everything else fails, I insert an old
NS2000 card first and then swap it for the LinkSys card which usually
does the trick.  Once it is up, it works like a charm.

Maybe this anecdotal evidence can direct somebody "in the know" in the
right direction of what might be the problem.  I do use PCMCIA 3.0.5, and I
have an extra

        include memory 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff

in my /etc/pcmcia/config.opts (sorry, if that's obvious).  Here is
what `tulip-diag' reports:

% tulip-diag -f -e -e -a -m -m
tulip-diag.c:v1.06 9/18/98 Donald Becker (becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov)
Unable to find a Tulip card in /proc/pci.
If there is a Tulip card in the machine, explicitly set the I/O port address
using '-p <ioaddr>

% ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:98:02:AD:92
          inet addr:192.76.244.197  Bcast:255.255.255.255  Mask:255.255.255.224
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:223104 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0
          TX packets:0 errors:13144 dropped:0 overruns:0
          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x280 

So, I also had to supply the port explictly:

% tulip-diag -p 0x280 -f -e -e -a -m -m
tulip-diag.c:v1.06 9/18/98 Donald Becker (becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov)
Digital DC21040 Tulip Tulip chip registers at 0x280:
  ffa04800 ffffffff ffffffff 00fff028 00fff228 f0660000 b20e2002 fbfffbff
  e0000000 fffd83ff ffffffff fffe0000 000000c6 ffff0000 fff80000 8ff50008
 The Rx process state is 'Waiting for packets'.
 The Tx process state is 'Idle'.
Transmit started, Receive started, half-duplex.
 The transmit threshold is 128.
 Port selection is MII, half-duplex.
EEPROM contents:
  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
 ID CRC 0xfa (vs. 0xff), complete CRC 57a987a3.
 MII PHY found at address 0, status 0x782d.
 MII PHY #0 transceiver registers:
   1000 782d 7810 0001 01e1 41e1 0003 0000
   0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
   0000 0000 4000 0000 3ffb 0010 0000 0002
   0001 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000.
 Basic mode control register 0x1000: Auto-negotiation enabled.
 Basic mode status register 0x782d ... 782d.
   Link status: established.
   Capable of  100baseTx-FD 100baseTx 10baseT-FD 10baseT.
   Able to perform Auto-negotiation, negotiation complete.
 Vendor ID is 1e:04:00:--:--:--, model 0 rev. 1.
   Vendor/Part: Level One LXT971.
 I'm advertising 01e1: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx 10baseT-FD 10baseT
   Advertising no additional info pages.
   IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD protocol.
 Link partner capability is 41e1: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx 10baseT-FD 10baseT.
   Negotiation  completed.


I'll be happy to collect some more info if necessary.

Hans

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hans Chalupsky                              USC Information Sciences Institute
<hans@isi.edu>                              4676 Admiralty Way
(310) 822-1511 Ext.745                      Marina del Rey, CA 90292
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